For what it’s worth, given I’ve not read any of them, here is the Stella Prize shortlist. The announcement I received via email this morning describes it as comprising:
a diverse mix, featuring novels, memoir and an essay collection. Three of these works are by debut authors, showcasing fresh voices in Australian literature.
To summarise from my longlist announcement, this year’s judges are writer, literary critic, Artistic Director of the Canberra Writers Festival and this year’s chair, BeeJay Silcox; Filipino-Australian poet, performer, arts producer, and advocate, Eleanor Jackson; First Nations award-winning poet and arts board member, Cheryl Leavy; noveslist, occasional critic and full-time dad, Bram Presser; and writer and historian, Dr Yves Rees.
The shortlist
Here is the list, in alphabetical order by author, with brief comments from the judges (found on the Stella website’s page for each book, linked on the title):
- Katia Ariel, The swift dark tide (memoir): “an open love letter to her own courage and desire”
- Katherine Brabon, Body friend (novel): “a novel of experiential heft and eloquence, which gives shape to the complexities of chronic pain”
- Emily O’Grady, Feast (novel) (Kate’s review): “told from the perspectives of three connected women, Feast reminds us not so much to be wary of unreliable narrators, but of the deep subjectivity of moral value.”
- Sanya Rushdi, translated by Arunava Sinha, Hospital (novel) (Kate’s review): “an unflinching, insightful and delicately wrought work of autofiction that brings devastating lucidity to the often-opaque realm of mental health”
- Hayley Singer, Abandon every hope (essays): “experimental and jostling in its use of poetic, lyric, academic and reflective writing styles, this book grapples with the industrial meat complex”
- Alexis Wright, Praiseworthy (novel) (Bill’s second post): genre-buster, “Fierce and gloriously funny, Praiseworthy is a genre-defiant epic of climate catastrophe proportions.”
So four novels, and two works of nonfiction. No poetry on this year’s shortlist. I have added a couple of reviews from my blogger friends, including Bill’s for Praiseworthy (which was also included in my Longlist post). Kate, as you will have seen, has managed to read two of them since the announcement. I am certainly interested in some of these.
The winner will be announced on 2 May. You can seen more details on the Stella 2024 page.
Any comments?
PS: Darn it, I copied my longlist post and then edited the title incorrectly so it was published as “Stella Prize 2023 Longlist” not “Stella Prize 2024 Shortlist!! Shows how distracted I am.
Whispering Gums 
*chuckle*
It’s happened to all of us.
You need to change the heading too, half way down the page.
Oh darn it … I do. Where is my brain!
Copying posts seems such a time saver but it comes with costs!!! Thanks.
It’s good to do when you can pillage a list you’ve already made so that you don’t need to do all the links all over again.
Exactly but maybe it’s safer to just copy and paste the list rather than copy the whole post. I was under the gun this morning to get out … always silly to work like that! But, I never learn!
Hey, it’s a blog, managed by one person. Don’t hold yourself to standards of professional journalism, it’s not fair to yourself.
I do the best I can but I make mistakes, I’m grateful to people who point them out, and I fix them. I don’t berate myself!
Ok, I’ll listen to you and stop right now! Thanks.
I’m amazed that Edenglassie isn’t on it.
I was disappointed Sara, because I have it on my shelves, but I haven’t read it yet so couldn’t really say anything.
So glad to see Hospital move ahead. No book I’ve read about mental illness captures what mania feels like from the inside—so well done! And the only translated title too.
Thanks Joe … yes I was going to mention the translation bit too. It does sound good to me.
I was there today. My first time attending such an event. Eleanor Jackson was at my table – a charming woman.
Yumnar Kassab and Michelle Law did the panel discussion on the books, with Yumnar being particularly clear and easy to listen to/follow. Having your blog post on Parramatta Laureate and my subsequent comments on my mind, I managed to catch Yumnar for a couple of minutes at the end. I blabbed a couple of memories of my time growing up in the area and she nicely pointed out the place has changed a lot. Then I touched on her scope for the Laureate and she said something like “it’s a dictionary, not a history”.
That caused me to delve further and I found the below linked article tonight. Obviously, I had completely the wrong idea about what she had been commissioned to write!
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-09/parramatta-laureate-literature-yumna-kassab/103204854
Oh how lovely Gwendoline. I have been invited several times to Stella events but am never able to make it. I remember reading he specific project was a dictionary. Will check that article later. Am in the car on the Hume Highway about till stop for a cuppa!
I like how there are so many genres on the list when prizes are generally so genre specific. I wonder if that makes choosing the winner harder for the judges?
I wonder that too Stefanie but as I recollect they discussed that and said not. I suppose they started by discussing their criteria and perhaps if you are broad readers and your criteria are about writing and meaning more than form perhaps it’s not too hard.
I’m surprised there was a poet on the judges panel, yet no poetry made it through. That is a sad state of things. For a while, some poets in the U.S. moved away from that overly-academic, stuffy, non-rhyming-because-that’s-so-pedestrian poetry we had for a while and started writing about things that matter to a new generation of readers. Thus, some of these folks (Amanda Lovelace comes to mind) have attracted new poetry devotees. I think it’s important that the working class have not only access to poetry, but poets from their own group. That’s part of why I loved the days of Broadside Press in Detroit. Poetry by the people, for the people, published in books that could fit in your back pocket so you could read them on break in the automotive assembly line, sold on street corners.
Thanks Melanie … I like the idea of poetry by the people for the people.
I wouldn’t worry about the Stella and poets, poets have won the award twice recently which is impressive given it’s an all forms/genres sort of award.
I still have not started Praiseworthy. I still want to read Praiseworthy. What is it that they say about the ability to hold two contrasting ideas in your mind simultaneously? /sigh AND it’s just so intimidatingly long.
I want to, also, Marcie, but yes, that length. Too much to read to be able to devote to it right now, I think.
I don’t think there’s a through line that would be missed if I undertake reading it over an unusually long time, so I’m going to start with two sittings/week with it (I think I’ve got it scribbled into next week, else, the week after) which probably won’t work out to much more than an hour, but I can’t make myself just take the plunge so I’ll trick myself into easing into it. Like a cold pool,
I should do that too but I don’t really get enough reading time I feel to manage multiple reads. One day!