And, the interesting literary awards keep coming. In November 2022, I announced the creation of the new 20/40 Publishing Prize by the local-to-my-region independent, non-profit publisher, Finlay Lloyd. A year later, in October 2023, I announced the inaugural shortlist, and soon after that, the winners, Rebecca Burton’s Ravenous girls (my review) and Kim Kelly’s Ladies’ Rest and Writing Room (my review). I am absolutely thrilled to see that the shortlist for this year’s award has just been announced.

But, before I get to that, a little explanation re my opening sentence. Like the Barbara Jefferis and the Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Awards, this award, too, has different and specific criteria, though in this case they are not so much about content as form. The 20/40 prize is a manuscript award with the prize being publication, neither of which criteria is particularly unusual. Further, it is not limited to debut or young or women or any other subgroup of writers, as some manuscript awards are. Submissions can be fiction or non-fiction, but must be prose (albeit “all genres … including hybrid forms” are welcome). What makes this award particularly special – to me anyhow – is that it is for shorter works, that is, for works between 20,000 and 40,000 words (hence the award’s name, the 20/40 Prize). The original aim was to make two awards – one to a work of fiction and one to nonfiction. However, last year the fiction submissions were so strong, said the judges, that both winners were fiction. Let’s see what happens this year …

And now, the 2024 Shortlist

Here is the shortlist, with a description from the announcement, plus further information I have found on the previously published authors.

• Alicia Marie Carter’s Minotaur toes pulls no punches in taking the reader deep into the searing, visceral reality of the ensnared existence of a young woman, manipulated in prostitution: Carter is a writer, editor, teacher and podcaster who has had short stories, poetry and personal essays published in various literary journals, has won awards for her short fiction, and had a novel, Songs at the end shortlisted for the Penguin Literary Prize 2021.
• PS Cottier and NG Hartland’s The thirty-one legs of Vladimir Putin spirits us away on a comedic journey into a world where the reality and absurdity of political power are increasingly indistinguishable: Cottier is a Canberra-based “poet who occasionally writes prose”, among other things, with an impressive body of work to her name; Harland is also a Canberra-based writer about whom I have found little except some references to prose writing.
• Susan Saliba’s There is something that waits inside us empathetically explores the search for solace of a girl caught between the example of her high-achieving aunt and her eccentric, dysfunctional mother: Saliba is an English and Creative Writing Teacher, and an award-winning writer of young adult and children’s fiction.
• Sonya Voumard’s Tremor shows us that beyond our societal expectations and judgements about normality, individual lives with disability can follow atypical, often difficult, but ultimately inspiring paths: Voumard is a writer and lecturer, primarily in non-fiction, who first came to my attention when she was longlisted for the Stella Prize in 2017 with The media and the massacre (which kimbofo reviewed from her won journalistic perspective).

Last year’s submissions were judged blind. This is not explicitly stated in this year’s shortlist announcement, but Julian Davies did say in an email announcement earlier this year that “Consistent with the ethos behind the prize, and last year’s guidelines, all entries will be read blind by the panel so that the quality of the writing guides the panel’s decisions rather than any extraneous influence”. I am clarifying this as I know it appeals to many readers and writers.

The judging panel for the 2024 prize comprised author Kevin Brophy (whose The lion in love I’ve reviewed), the publisher and author Julian Davies (whom I’ve reviewed a few times), author and poet Rashida Murphy, and last year’s winners, Rebecca Burton and Kim Kelly (aka Kim Swivel). The ongoing plan is for the previous year’s winners to be on the next year’s panel.

The winners will be announced on 26 October, just in time, again, for Novellas in November. The media release says, “it is intrinsic to a publishing prize that when the shortlisted entries are announced, the winning books are already in the final stages of being prepared for publication”. In other words, we should be able to buy them at the end of this month. Watch this space. I have so many novellas I want to read for Novellas in November …

It is heartening to see Finlay Lloyd’s commitment to their prize. I hope it continues long into the future.