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Melbourne Prize for Literature 2009

Finalists Announced

Five authors have been shortlisted for the Melbourne Prize for Literature, an award worth a whopping $60,000. This year Barry Hill, Hannie Rayson, Shane Maloney, Alex Miller and Gerald Murnane make up the famous five. The Prize, which is offered every three years, is awarded to a Victorian writer whose body of published or produced work has made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature, and to cultural and intellectual life. All genres and forms, such as fiction, non-fiction, essays, plays, screenplays and poetry, are considered.

Best Writing Award 2009

The shortlist for the 2009 Best Writing Award has also been announced.

The Best Writing Award is for a piece of published or produced work of outstanding clarity, originality and creativity by a Victorian writer aged forty years or younger.

The nominated writers are:

Tom Cho: Look Who’s Morphing (Giramondo)

Joel Deane: Magisterium (Arcadia)

Lisa Gorton: Press Release (Giramondo)

Chloe Hooper: The Tall Man (Hamish Hamilton)

Simmone Howell: Everything Beautiful (Pan Macmillan)

Myfanwy Jones: The Rainy Season (Viking)

Lally Katz: Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd (HLA)

Nam Lee: The Boat (Hamish Hamilton)

Amra Pajalic: The Good Daughter (Text)

Jeff Sparrow: Killing (Melbourne University Press)

The recipient of the Best Writing Award 2009 will be invited to participate in a three-month association with the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. They will also be awarded $30,000 – nothing to sneeze at!

We at Kill Your Darlings think the shortlist for the Best Writing Award is looking particularly stellar this year. It’s refreshing to see new writers, such as Amra Pajalic and Simmone Howell, lined up with the likes of Nam Le and Chloe Hooper – a writer whose mantelpiece is already cluttered with prizes.  Chloe’s true-crime book, The Tall Man, has already cleaned up the Victorian, Queensland and NSW Premier’s Prizes, The John Button Prize for political writing, the Australian Book Industry non-fiction prize and the true-crime prizes at the Ned Kelly and Davitt Awards!

The winners will be announced on November 11. We’ll keep you posted.

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