Last November, I announced the creation of the new 20/40 Publishing Prize by the wonderful (and local-ish to me), independent, non-profit publisher, Finlay Lloyd. Now, eleven months later, the awarding of the inaugural prize is imminent, with the shortlist being announced last Friday and the winners to be announced on 28 October.
But, just to recap, 20/40 is a manuscript award, with the prize being publication. It is not limited to debut or young or women or any other subgroup of writers, as some manuscript awards are. However, it does have some criteria, in addition to looking for “writing of the highest quality”. The submissions can be fiction or non-fiction, must be prose (but “all genres … including hybrid forms” are welcome), and must be between 20,000 and 40,000 words (hence the award’s name, the 20/40 Prize). They aim to choose two winners, each year. In the communication I received last week about the shortlist, Finlay Lloyd publisher and commissioning editor, Julian Davies, says:
Our passion for creating this opportunity for writers and bringing their work to the reading public will continue next year and, we hope, for many more.
That’s great to hear … and we can do our bit to help by buying and reading the winning published novels.
And now, the Shortlist
You can read a brief description of the six works at the announcement link above, so here I will provide some brief author information that I have found online.
- Roger Averill, Slippage: freelance researcher, editor and writer, with four books published by Transit Lounge – Exile: The lives and hope of Werner Pelz (Lisa’s review), the memoir Boy he cry: An island odyssey, and two novels, Keeping faith and Relatively famous (Lisa’s review).
- Rebecca Burton, Ravenous girls: editor, and author of two young adult novels, Leaving Jetty Road and Beyond Evie, both published by HarperCollins Australia.
- Rachel Flynn, New moon rising: author of children’s picture books and novels, including the I hate Friday series, published by Penguin.
- Kim Kelly, Ladies’ Rest and Writing Room: author of 12 , mostly historical fiction, novels, most if not all published by Brio Books.
- Jane Skelton, Breathing water: writer of poetry, short fiction and novels, published by Flying River Press, Rochford Press, Spineless Wonders and others.
- Olivia De Zilva, Hold on tight: writer and poet.
Julian Davies explains on the shortlist page that the works were judged blind.
The judging panel for the inaugural prize comprised Katia Ariel (author and editor), Christina Balint (whose novella, Water music, I’ve reviewed), John Clanchy (novelist and short story writer whom I’ve reviewed a few times), Julian Davies (the publisher and also an author whom I’ve also reviewed a few times), and Stefanie Markidis (writer and researcher).
When I first announced this prize last November, I noted its relevance to Novellas in November. So, I am thrilled about the timing of this announcement, because you can pre-order the two winning novellas at the Finlay Lloyd site, for a special discounted price of $43.20 (instead of $24 each). A bargain. And, if you’ve never read a Finlay Lloyd book before, you won’t be disappointed I’m sure in the artefacts themselves, as publishing good writing in beautiful packaging is what they do. Pre-ordered books will be shipped on announcement day, October 28, giving you time to read one or both by the end of November! I plan to.
Whispering Gums 
I really liked one of Kim Kelly’s books – about publishing as it happens – Her Last Words, and noted then, a couple of years ago, that all her books were being republished by Brio, which is owned by Booktopia. I haven’t seen that she’s posted about being shortlisted for 20/40. Perhaps she’s waiting with fingers crossed.
Maybe she is Bill … of the list hers was the name that most rang a bell with me. Republished by Brio … ah that explains it as I thought it waa a bit odd.
Well that’s a whole lotta new stuff – new in terms of my not having read of any of them here. And after all, isn’t here where it’s at ?
😀
Haha, thanks MR … I’d like to think that this is one of the places it’s at.
Oh ALright .. I s’pose that I’ll admit Lisa and Bill and a couple of others ..
Exactly! But I’m glad you like me too!
No, not “too”, ST. You’re always first.
Enough of this mutual admiration society !!! Let us be literary !
Well, you can be; and I’ll be off-topic-like. [grin]
OK, let’s move on. You know I love your support…
I’m pleased to see Roger Averill’s name there, I think he’s a very interesting writer. I don’t know the others so that in itself makes this a good shortlist.
I get my WP notifications by email, and that has worked fine up until this week. Now I’m getting comments from posts I haven’t read (from bloggers I follow) let alone commented on. And, as I suspected, I’m not getting notifications from posts I have commented on. eg. this one.
How do you feel about prizes being judged without identifying the author? To me it, it seems fairest, but others have pointed out that judging without a name means people who aren’t white men are left out. I’m not sure how that works unless a big majority of submissions are white men?
That’s an interesting criticism, Melanie. I agree with you. It would only work If, an you say, the majority of the submissions are white male and/or if the judging panels can tell which books are by white men and then choose those books. I find it really hard to see this, I don’t know what the gender breakdown was in the submissions for this prize, but five of the six blind-read shortlisted books are by women. So, I like the idea of blind judging, particularly for these manuscript awards.
I do, too. The number of times a big-name author wins makes me suspicious. Are they trying to attract attention? Creating controversy for the media? Just do it without the names!
All those questions and possibilities, but perhaps also, they are big-name authors because they are good? Awards are also subjective, it’s hard to know – and even the judges probably don’t know what they’re truly thinking?
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That IS good timing, with the alliterative sense of promise with novellas in November.
I think the concept of blind judging is complicated because when judges often emerge from within the literary community, and that tends to be clustered around key cities, members of the community can’t help but hear the talk of who’s working on what and apply that information instinctively while reading/judging. Even just attending a lot of events, when writers might be reading from works in progress, can create that body of knowledge, subtle but undeniable. Osmosis, almost?
Yes, very true Marcie. Blind can never be truly blind. With established writers, too, their style will often be recognised, won’t it.
I think so…preoccupations too…the way that some writers circle around and regularly return to particular themes (I’m thinking of Steven Heighton in Canada who started writing about migration and the climate crisis years before it seemed to be a publishing trend and how, in that way, his work could be recognised in a literary landscape whether or not it was identified as his).
Yes … put style and preoccupations together and well-read judges are sure to know most established authors in their neck of the woods.