Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature shortlists

  

The shortlist of contenders for 2012 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature has been announced and its $135,000 prize money will be shared amongst 10 awards, which will include a new award introduced for Young adult fiction for the first time this year.

“We’re especially proud this year to be able to recognize authors of young adult fiction with the introduction of a stand-alone award. There were more than 100 nominations, which shows there is a strong literary interest in this genre,” said Executive Director at Arts SA, Alexandra Reid.

The awards are managed by Arts SA and were introduced by the state government in 1986. This year, six authors will be awarded nationally as well as two awards and two fellowships dedicated to writers from South Australia.

“Arts SA is delighted to be honouring excellence in Australian and South Australian writing, and once again we’ve seen a healthy increase overall in the number of nominations for the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, proving that Australia’s rich publishing and literary culture continues to thrive,” said Reid.

Since the awards were first introduced by the South Australian government in 1986, nominations have poured in every year. In 2012, it has not been any different. The highest number of nominations received this year was for the Non-Fiction category with a total of 186 nominations, followed by the Children’s Literature award with 102 nominations.

However, most writers seem to have their eyes set on the prestigious Premier’s award of $10,000, which is given by the judging panel to the best overall published work.

The winners will be announced during Adelaide Writers’ Week on Saturday March 3, by South Australian Premier, the Hon Jay Weatherill, in a presentation at the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden at Adelaide Festival.

Full list of the awards shortlists as follows:

Children’s literature award
Aaron Blabey, The Ghost of Miss Annabel Spoon (Viking)
Kate Constable, Crow Country (Allen & Unwin)
Bob Graham, A Bus Called Heaven (Walker Books)
Rosanne Hawke, Taj and the Great Camel Trek (University of Queensland Press)
Norman Jorgensen (illustrator James Foley), The Last Viking (Fremantle Press)
Lian Tanner, The Keepers: Museum of Thieves (Allen & Unwin)

Young adult fiction award
Georgia Blain, Darkwater, (Random House Australia)
D. M. Cornish, Monster Blood Tattoo Book Three: Factotum (Omnibus Books)
Ursula Dubosarsky, The Golden Day (Allen & Unwin)
Scot Gardner, The Dead I Know (Allen & Unwin)
Doug MacLeod, The Life of a Teenage Body-Snatcher (Penguin Books)
Vikki Wakefield, All I Ever Wanted (Text Publishing)

Fiction award
Anna Funder, All That I Am (Hamish Hamilton)
Gail Jones, Five Bells (Vintage)
Alex Miller, Autumn Laing (Allen & Unwin)
Kim Scott, That Deadman Dance (Picador Australia)
Dominic Smith, Bright and Distant Shores (Allen & Unwin)
Rohan Wilson, The Roving Party (Allen & Unwin)

John Bray poetry award
Jennifer Compton, Barefoot (Picaro Press)
Diane Fahey, The Wing Collection: New & Selected Poems (Puncher & Wattmann Poetry)
Les Murray, Taller When Prone (Black Inc.)
David Musgrave, Phantom Limb (John Leonard Press)
Tracy Ryan, The Argument (Fremantle Press)
Petra White, The Simplified World (John Leonard Press)

Non-Fiction award
James Boyce, 1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia (Black Inc.)
Fiona Capp, My Blood’s Country (Allen & Unwin)
Jim Davidson, A Three Cornered Life: The Historian W.K. Hancock (University of New South Wales Press)
Mark McKenna, An Eye for Eternity (The Miegunyah Press)
Hazel Rowley, Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage (Melbourne University Press)
Brenda Walker, Reading By Moonlight: How Books Saved A Life (Penguin Books)

Unpublished manuscript award
Henry Aybee, The Red Hat: An Australian Gothic Novel
Belinda Broughton, The Sparrow
Rachael Mead, The Sixth Creek
Margaret Merrilees, The First Week
Rob Walker, Tropeland

Jill Blewett playwright’s award
Nicki Bloom, A Cathedral
Elena Carapetis, Helen Back
Duncan Graham, Wolf Hunger

Barbara Hanrahan fellowship
Nicki Bloom, The Sun and the Other Stars
Carol Lefevre, A Maze in the Garden
David Sornig, You, Of All People