Occasionally, as you know, I use my Monday Musings post to make awards announcements, particularly if the announcement is made on Monday, as this award usually is. And so it happened again today, a Monday, that the shortlist for this award was announced.
I have written about it before and so if you are interested to read about its origins and intentions please check that link. In a nutshell, it celebrates “excellence in research and writing”, and, like the Stella Prize, it is not limited by genre. However, given its research focus, nonfiction always features heavily.
The new thing, though, that is worth sharing in today’s post is that in April this year, Waverley Council which manages the award announced that the winner’s prize had doubled in value from $20,000 to $40,000, thanks, they say on their website, “to an ongoing multiyear commitment by the award’s principal sponsors, Sydney philanthropists, Mark and Evette Moran, Co-Founders/Co-CEOs of the Mark Moran Group”. This is a significant prize. The Council’s announcement also said that it had “also increased the People’s Choice Prize to $4000 and will be offering six shortlist prizes of $1,500 each”.
The Award is also supported by community partner Gertrude and Alice Bookshop and Café.
The judges for the 2023 award are Katerina Cosgrove (author), Jamie Grant (poet and editor), and Julia Carlomagno (publisher).
The 2023 shortlist
- Alison Bashford, An intimate history of evolution: The story of the Huxley family (family biography, Allen Lane)
- André Dao, Anam (debut novel, Hamish Hamilton) (Brona’s review)
- Jim Davidson, Emperors in Lilliput: Clem Christesen of Meanjin and Stephen Murray-Smith of Overland (dual literary biography, The Miegunyah Press)
- Fiona McMillian-Webster, The age of seeds: How plants hacked time and why our future depends on it (science nonfiction, Thames & Hudson Australia)
- Ross McMullin, Life so full of promise: further biographies of Australia’s lost generation (multi-biography, Scribe)
- Brigitta Olubas, Shirley Hazzard: A writing life (literary biography, Virago, on my TBR)
Waverley Council Mayor, Paula Masselos, said that the shortlist was chosen from more than 230 nominations, a number that, she said, reinforces “the importance and gravitas of this award”.
As commonly happens with this award, life-writing features heavily in the shortlist, with just one work of fiction. It is not as diverse as other awards are increasingly becoming, but most of these books wold interest me.
The winner of the overall prize and the People’s Choice Award will be announced on 9 November. For information on how to vote for the People’s Choice Award, check out the shortlist announcement page.
Do you know any of these books?
Whispering Gums 
Indeed an interesting list – and also a pretty short one, eh ?
Haha MR… it is the shortlist. But yes I could imagine reading most of those books.
Anam is on my TBR, and so is the Hazzard bio.
I’m interested in your comment about ‘not being diverse’.
As you say, the award is about “excellence in research and writing”, and presumably they judge from the entries that are submitted to it. From the titles of five of the six books we can presume that they represent years of research about original topics and we assume that the other is too. Should we be judging the judges for not having some other criteria as well?
It was an observation that I’ve made before, Lisa … and no I don’t think there should be hidden criteria but given the diversity that we are seeing in Australian literary output this issue has been standing out to me. It may be how “research” is defined. It may be the background of the judges. It may be that this award is not on the radar for many writers, and/or that they are assuming “research” means something more narrow than the award might intend. I think this is a very interesting award so I am just making an observation.
Personally, I believe all judges ought to be judged, and often. (This view springs from the nefarious activities of SCOTUS ..)
Haha, yes MR.
I read Anam last month for book group and I have the Hazzard bio on my TBR, but I’m not likely to read the rest at this point. Glad that the prize amount has significantly increased though – great news for our writers!
It sure is Brona… Did you review it? I haven’t been keeping very up to days with blogs lately but if you did I’ll add the link.
Yes I did & that’s fine I’ve missed lots of posts recently too.
I don’t know any of these books, but I do appreciate that they give a short list financial award. Writers don’t get paid most of the time, and frequently these prizes require and entry fee.
No, I wouldn’t expect you to Melanie. It’s been great seeing more and more awards giving a monetary prize to shortlists – in Australia anyhow. The shortlist prizes are comparatively small but something is better than nothing I’d say.