Category: Austlit
A Brilliant Award
The inaugural Stella Prize Longlist was released today. The announcement, for the first ever longlist of the best work of literature published in 2012 by an Australian woman, even trended on twitter. The award is named after one of Australia's most important female authors, Stella Maria 'Miles' Franklin.
The Stella Prize will be awarded on April 16, with the winner receiving $50,000 in prize money. The longlist is comprised of:
- Floundering by Romy Ash (Text Publishing)
- Mazin Grace by Dylan Coleman (UQP)
- The Burial by Courtney Collins (Allen & Unwin)
- The People Smuggler by Robin de Crespigny (Penguin/Viking)
- Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser (Allen & Unwin)
- Sufficient Grace by Amy Espeseth (Scribe Publications)
- The Sunlit Zone by Lisa Jacobson (5 Islands Press)
- Like a House on Fire by Cate Kennedy (Scribe Publications)
- Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin)
- The Mind of a Thief by Patti Miller (UQP)
- An Opening by Stephanie Radok (Wakefield Press)
- Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany (Pan Macmillan/Picador)
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Herb Wharton receives Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature
On November 22nd, The Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature was given to Herb Wharton.
As an Indigenous writer, poet and storyteller, Herb Wharton is best known for his 1992 breakthrough novel Unbranded (commissioned by The University of Queensland Press), Cattle Camp , Where Ya Been Mate? and Kings with Empty Pockets.
The Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature recognises Mr Wharton's writing for "its unique and untold perspective of Australian rural heritage"; particularly, for continuing to tell stories of the Aboriginal contribution to the Australian pastoral industry.
The Chair of the Australia Council Literature Board, Sophie Cunningham noted that:
(Wharton) is a wonderful advocate for Aboriginal literature and stories, as well as rural history more broadly. The importance of Herb's work in documenting and telling these stories is reflected by the now 20 boxes of his writing, notes and recording of oral histories that are held in the University of Queensland's Fryer Library.
The Fryer Library began to collect Wharton's work in 1996 and the collection reflects his passion for Aboriginal literature and stories. It includes valuable insights into his writing process, such as transforming an oral story into a published work. Wharton's role in this process can be traced from audiotapes of oral stories told by other drovers, working notes, interactions with UQP editorial staff, to the completed drafts of works such as Cattle Camp.
The collection is also unrivalled as a personal archive of this important writer's work. As Mr Wharton told Sue Abbey in a 2007 interview, it contains "the first bit of notes."
"I probably thought about (writing) for fifty years, but it took me forty odd years to write my first notes down".
More information about the $50 000 Lifetime Achievement award, which recognises contributions to Australian literature, is available on The Australia Council webpage. The full text of Sue Abbey's 2007 interview with Herb Wharton is available in Fryer Folios (July, 2007).
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