As has happened in the past, this week’s Monday Musings has been gazumped by the announcement this evening of the Stella Prize longlist. I attended the online streamed announcement from the Adelaide Festival Writers Week
As I say every year, I don’t do well at having read the Stella Prize longlist at the time of its announcement. In recent years the most I’ve read has been two (in 2019). This year, like the last two years I’ve read none, but a couple are on my TBR! Is the a start?
I was, however, doing better at reading the winners, having read Carrie Tiffany’s Mateship with birds (2013), Clare Wright’s The forgotten rebels of Eureka (2014), Emily Bitto’s The strays (2015), Charlotte Wood’s The natural way of things (2016), Heather Rose’s The museum of modern love (2017), Vicki Laveau-Harvie’s The erratics (2019), Jess Hill’s See what you made me do (2020), Evelyn Araluen’s Dropbear (2022). I have the 2021 and 2023 winners on my TBR, Evie Wyld’s The bass rock and Sarah Holland-Batt’s The jaguar, respectively.
This year’s judges include one from last year, and some newbies, keeping the panel fresh as in Stella’s commitment: 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 longlist
Here is the list, in alphabetical order by author, not the order in which they were presented, and with a few scrabbled notes I made as I listened to the list being read out.
- Katia Ariel, The swift dark tide (memoir)
- Stephanie Bishop, The anniversary (novel): “genre fiction at is very best … as clever as it is delicious” (kimbofo’s review)
- Katherine Brabon, Body friend (novel)
- Ali Cobby Eckermann, She is the earth (verse novel)
- Melissa Lucashenko, Edenglassie (novel): “triumph of characterisation … gives truth to state sanctioned violence” (Brona’s review)
- Maggie MacKellar, Graft (memoir/nature writing) (Kate’s brief review)
- Kate Mildenhall, The hummingbird effect (novel): “speculative fiction at its finest” tackling the issues of our age (Brona’s review)
- Emily O’Grady, Feast (novel): “country house novel … be wary of deep subjectivity of moral value”
- Sanya Rushdi, translated by Arunava Sinha, Hospital (novel): “unflinching and insightful work of autofiction”
- Hayley Singer, Abandon every hope (essays): “no moral shrillness here”
- Laura Elizabeth Woollett, West girls (novel): “a novel of sad girls that is the antithesis of sad girl novels”
- Alexis Wright, Praiseworthy (novel) (Bill’s second post): genre-buster, “fierce and gloriously funny – part manifesto, part indictment”
The panel discussion that followed the announcement was wonderfully engaging, with the judges (sans Bram Presser who was home looking after his kids), exploring the individual works, and looking at the “conversations between the books”, that is the ways the books intersected with each other in subject matter and form. They talked about how many of the books critique systems of power wielded over others, how many embodied the idea of the body, how climate change is addressed in different ways, and more. It was too much to capture and listen to at the same time. They talked about form, and how some books were true to form and were great because of that, while in others form was wildly broken (like Alexis Wright’s Praiseworthy). The books, they said, are powerful but without sentiment, asking instead for “the dignity of witness”. They are not hectoring, and many are deeply funny.
I am not going to say anything about the selection, because the Stella is such a wonderfully diverse prize that aims to encompass a wide range of forms and styles. There will always be choices we question. But, I will just say, because I can, that I’d love to have seen Carmel Bird’s Love letter to Lola (my review) recognised, because as they spoke about the books they read, I felt that Bird’s collection has the energy, the wit, the heart, and the awareness of “the issues of our age” that their selected books apparently also have. Did they even read it, I wonder?
Opening the session, Beejay Silcox said that the “heartbeat of Australian writing is here” and it’s damning that our writers cannot make a living from their craft. Amen to that.
You can write a different future and dream the culture forward. (end of the Panel discussion)
The shortlist will be announced on 4 April, and the winner on 2 May. You can seen more details on the Stella 2024 page.
Any comments?
Whispering Gums 
‘Praiseworthy’ for the win, for all the wins 🙂
I’m cheering for Graft… but wondering if Wright will pull off a second Stella!
And hers, Kate, is one of the three winners I haven’t read … Graft sounds interesting too. I like good nature-writing which they implied it is.
Thanks Tony … I’ll have to read this. I am enthused to read it but it is SO long!
One long book is just a few short books read one after the other 😉
Exactly Tony, meaning I could read a few short books from my TBR, that I’m keen to read, in the same time! That’s the issue – haha.
What Tony said!
Thanks for the link. I was notified to ‘approve’ it but not of your post. These days when I sit down after a trip I run down my follows list to see what is top of your posts. It’s the only way to keep up.
Love the Stella. I don’t read them all – I’m not reading much Australian this year – but it’s a very reliable prize.
WordPress is being weird at the moment, Bill, but I’m glad you got the approve notification. I really like the Stella Prize – often very left field, but that’s good I think.
Ha ha, I haven’t read a single one of them!
I wondered Lisa, as I saw that none of those on your list on Kate’s post had made it. I had a draft post set up with my “guesses” in it. The only two I got right were Alexis Wright and Melissa Lucashenko, though I nearly added Ali Cobby Eckermann except that I’d not heard anything really about this work of hers. I hadn’t heard of the Brabon and the Rushdi. I think Singer is Upswell? (I should check before pronouncing but it’s been a big day – I’m in Berrima for two nights with a dear library school friend.)
I am out of step with a lot of what’s in the zeitgeist. I’m certainly keeping up with new releases but I’m just not interested in agenda-driven stuff, and having perused four of the titles that are on this list and decided not to bother, I don’t have any confidence that the others would interest me either.
But if you look at Kate’s predictions on her blog, there’s a lot there that I really liked. I recommended these for her ‘really long list of what’s eligible’ and I think it’s very disappointing that not even one of these terrific books was on the Stella list.
Serengotti by Eugen Bacon
The Modern by Anna Kate Blair
Ravenous Girls by Rebecca Burton
One Illuminated Thread by Sally Colin-James
Strangers at the Port by Lauren Aimee Curtis
Call Me Marlowe by Catherine de Saint Phalle
Doll’s Eye by Leah Kaminsky
Never Look Desperate by Rachel Matthews
The Sitter by Angela O’Keeffe
Sunbirds by Mirandi Riwoe
The Crying Room by Gretchen Shirm
The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
I’m currently reading One Day We’re All Going to Die by Elise Esther Hearst, and it’s really good too.
Thanks Lisa … I had a few of these in my draft post thinking they were possibilities, but I’m always prepared for Stella to surprise me. As for agenda-driven stuff, it depends more me on how it’s written. Some agendas need to be written about – as I’m guessing you’d agree with – because they have been ignored so long. The sense I got from the panel was that even though many do seem to be about “issues of our age” they are done with dignity and humour BUT I’ll have to see for myself, won’t I?
I included Graft in my predictions out of sheer, cross-my-fingers hope. I was THRILLED to see it there.
I was glad to see three memoirs there – the last few years have been light-on in terms of memoir (always my favourite genre). I have Feast and The Anniversary in my reading stack, so I’ll read those next.
I didn’t DO predictions on my blog, Kate, but I set up a draft post with some predictions in and the only two I got were Lucashenko and Wright, though I nearly added Eckermann. I hadn’t seen your list because I’ve had a busy day, but I’ve just looked. I had your first four in my list, plus Ravenous Girls and Edenglassie. I had Carmel Bird in mine, too, so that’s 9. I’ve forgotten the others.
Got to hand it to the Stella judges! I love the way they include books that might otherwise fly beneath the radar. I’ve only read Kate Mildenhall’s The Hummingbird Effect so far (and loved it!) but Edenglassie, Body Friend and West Girls are on my TBR.
Agree Angela … love what they do. I’d like to read Mildenhall, but the only one on my actual TBR is Edenglassie. I am also keen to read Ali Cobby Eckermann as I loved her Ruby Moonlight verse novel. And of course there are others I’d like to read including the three you name.
Great wrap up! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Lyndall. Glad you found it worth reading!
I loved both Edenglassie and The hummingbird effect a lot, so thrilled they are on the longlist. Will get to Praiseworthy one day it’s on my tbr and will have a look at the Eckermann when I get back to work. I lost my way with Graft but maybe it was timing – trying to read a contemplative memoir in the lead up to Christmas isn’t always a good idea!!
Oh thanks Brona … you said on Kate’s post that you’d read several, but I didn’t have time to go looking as I’m in Berrima on a getaway with a friend. I will add your reviews.
I went to launch of Graft which was good but not read any if them.
Thanks Pam … sounds like this is the case for a few of us.
Tangent: I was just skimming another person’s list of prize candidates (different prize) and noticed they repeatedly described books as “not perfect.” I see this in the horror movie community, too: “not perfect, but…” I must be dumb, but what does that even mean?? Was there a list of criteria for perfection that I missed? Maybe you have an idea, Sue. You often see things from a perspective I fail to consider.
Good question, Melanie. I remember years and years ago when I used to talk to some serious film buffs about films and they would invariably say “I enjoyed the film but it had problems”, or some such. I hated it if they didn’t they follow up on what those were! But, that’s not quite the same as “not perfect”. I’m chuffed that you think I often seen things from a perspective you hadn’t considered, but this time I’m not sure I have one.
But, here goes. I think there are a few readings of this. Leaving aside the problematical issue of perfection because I think many people who say this don’t really have an idea of what perfect is. They just want to indicate that there are “misses” in the work. Sometimes, I find that this sort of statement can be said by someone who has some valid things to say about “gaps” or “failings” in the work, and you can tell because they back it up with evidence, but sometimes I think it’s people not wanting to go out on a limb, one way or another (that is, say it’s terrible or it’s brilliant), so they say this, which covers a lot of bases.
I don’t think there can be a list of criteria – do you? I think it’s more that people who say this might have a sense within themselves of works they think are perfect for them but this particular one doesn’t meet it. It’s pretty meaningless though when it’s just tacked onto a list without any context.
I think I’ve rambled.
No, you didn’t ramble. That was a great answer. Perhaps I’m also coming from the perspective that when someone uses “perfect” or “not perfect” as a descriptor, they’ve decided to put on a crown and deem themselves the arbiter of perfection, which I consider audacious. I don’t typically see professional reviewers describing movies, books, TV, etc. as perfect or not, so I wonder what makes an amateur reviewer say as much. Perhaps they have not given consideration to how they come off, or that “perfect” can’t be a catch-all phrase indicating that they personally would have been happier if the work they are reviewing were different.
Thanks, I’m glad I didn’t ramble. Yes, that’s exactly how l see it – and you have put it clearly. I see it as a throwaway description by usually amateur reviewers who tend to use it in terms of their own personal likes and dislikes. Like you, I don’t find it helpful, and I don’t take it seriously. I wonder if I’ve said it myself – in this vein – in the past! If I have, I hope I’ve at least backed up my reasoning. I try hard not to use jargon, emotional terms and superlatives in my posts – which is something you are very good at avoiding with your alway/s origi’nal reviews. (This comment of mine I have just found “posted” by Anonymous – what? – but I don’t see it here by Anonymous or anyone!)
I’m not sure what you mean by an anonymous post, but I’ve noticed recently a few folks getting caught in a comment that says anonymous, almost like WordPress is signing them out, or something.
That’s what I meant. It had me listed as an Anonymous commenter, but then corrected it. WP signs me out of my own blog ALL the time.
I’m always excited to see the Stella list revealed, even though I never have read any of them and often can never access them (short of importing directly from an Australian indie shop I suppose). But this year I do have Alexis Wright’s novel on the shelf, thanks for Bill’s nudging. (It’s published by New Directions in North America.) This year is the second year of the Carol Shields Fiction Prize, which has a similar intent and has just been announced, and I’ve read some of those but several are on my TBR so I’m voting with you to have that count as “nearly the same as reading”. Hee hee
Ha ha Marcie. I think I’d missed that about the Carol Shields Fiction Prize. I need to pay some closer attention. Looks like it has one difference from Stella – it’s fiction only.
BTW, my post on Claire Battershill’s 2014 short story collection, Circus, has suddenly been getting more hits than usual. I can’t see any reason why. Maybe it’s suddenly been set in classrooms!