Book lists

Stella Prize 2026 Longlist announced

/ Whispering Gums / 8 Comments

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 at the time of the announcement has been two (in 2019). Last year I’d read one. I have read 9 of the 13 winners to date, which is a fair run for me.

As I also say every year, Stella works hard to keep their judging panels fresh, so again none of this year’s judges were on last year’s panel, though some have judged before. This year’s panel comprises bookseller, editor, and author, Jaclyn Crupi; academic and author, Sophie Gee; author, screenwriter, and broadcaster, Benjamin Law; journalist, writer, and facilitator, Gillian O’Shaughnessy; author and editor, Ellen van Neerven. Sophie Gee is this year’s Chair.

The longlist

Here is the list, in alphabetical order by author, which is also how they were presented:

  • Eunice Andrada, Kontra (poetry)
  • Evelyn Araluen, The rot (poetry) (on my TBR) (CWF Session 5 and 6) (Jonathan’s review)
  • Geraldine Brooks, Memorial days (memoir) (Kate’s review)
  • Debra Dank, Ankami: Stolen children, shattered families, silenced histories (nonfiction/memoir) (on my TBR)
  • Miranda Darling, Firewater (novel)
  • Natalie Harkin, Apron-sorrow/Sovereign tea (nonfiction)
  • Lee Lai, Cannon (graphic novel)
  • Charlotte McConaghy, Wild dark shore (novel) (Brona’s review)
  • Lucy Nelson, Wait here (short story collection)
  • Micaela Sahhar, Find me at Jaffa Gate: An encyclopedia of a Palestinian family (nonfiction/memoir)
  • Marika Sosnowski, 58 facets: On violence and the law (nonfiction)
  • Tasma Walton, I am Nannertgarroook (novel)

So, 5 fiction (including one graphic novel and a short story collection), 5 nonfiction (including 3 memoirs), and 2 poetry collections, this year. And four, I think, by First Nations writers – Araluen, Dank, Harkin and Walton. You can read about the longlist, including comments by the judges, at the Stella website.

As I did last year, prior to the announcement, I pre-loaded this post with 25 potential longlistees, partly in the hope that it would speed up writing this post if I had a goodly number of the listed titles already in the post, but I only guessed 4 of the selected books.

As always, I won’t question the selection, though I did have a couple of favourites I’d love to have seen here. But, the Stella is a diverse prize that aims to encompass a wide range of forms and styles, including some I don’t necessarily chase, and I can’t pretend to have read widely from 2025’s output. But I do have some on my TBR or in my sights. Certainly, contemporary political issues are evident in the listing, which is what we’d expect from a prize that wants to encompass good writing that reflects the diversity of Australian writing (by women and non-binary authors). Many of these writers are the brave ones confronting us with their presence and their ideas.

You can read the judges’ report at the link I’ve given above, so I’ll just share two paragraph from it:

As we narrowed the field to a long-longlist, we commented often on how virtually every book reimagined and transformed a different life story, through fine-grained attention, creative intelligence and technical skill. The twelve longlist titles reflect the excellence of all the entries, virtually all of which accomplished something moving and true through narrative, structure, voice or description.

In the other, they define what they mean by originality:

Originality consists in a book that recognisably inhabits its genre or form, and at the same time purposefully breaks it. Original writing changes the scope of what can be thought, felt and envisioned. A sign of great originality is often that, as readers, we think new thoughts, or feel changed by sentences, images and ideas. Originality reaches beyond the book itself to shift the lives of readers.

Each of the longlisted authors receives $2000 in prize money, donated by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund, while shortlists will receive $5000. The winer will receive $60,000. There were over 200 submissions this year.

The shortlist will be announced on 8 April, and the winner on 13 May.

Any comments?

Monday musings on Australian literature: Turning 50 in 2026

/ Whispering Gums / 36 Comments

No, not me, much as I wish it were! I’m talking books. Today being the day after International Women’s Day, I thought to feature women in this week’s Monday Musings. But how? Then I remembered that somewhere last year I’d seen a list of books turning 50, so decided to take inspiration from that and share books by Aussie women which are turning 50 this year, meaning they were published in 1976.

Researching this wasn’t easy. Wikipedia’s 1976 in Australian literature was inadequate, but I have beefed it up somewhat now. It had only one novel by an Australian woman under “Books” and one entry under “Short Stories”. So, I searched Wikipedia for authors I knew of the time and found more titles. I also used Hooton and Heseltine’s Annals of Australian literature (though that was tedious because many of the authors are listed under last name only. Is Bennett female or male, for example? Female I discovered. In she went into Wikipedia’s 1976 page too, but she doesn’t have her own page despite her body of work.)

By the time I finished I had added four novels by Australian women, two short story entries, three poets, another dramatist, and three children’s works. I could have added a few more but time and, to some degree, the work’s significance (or “notability” in Wikipedia’s world), resulted in my stopping where I did. My point in sharing this is not to beat my own drum but to say that it is really important, when we can, to improve Wikipedia’s listings in less populated areas, such as entries for women and other minorities. For all its faults, Wikipedia is a triumph, but it is up to all of us who have the time and skills to keep it that way. End of lesson …

Books turning 50 in 2026

During my research into writers who, I knew, were writing around this time, I checked, for example. Thea Astley. She published 15 novels between 1958 and 1999, but only 2 in the 1970s, neither in 1976. Jessica Anderson published three novels in the 1970s but not in 1976. The same went for Barbara Hanrahan. Now, the lists …

Links on names are to my posts on those authors. I have made some random notes against some of the listings,

Novels

  • Nancy Cato and Vivienne Rae Ellis, Queen Trucanini: historical fiction, which was of course Cato’s metier. I haven’t read it, but we have moved on in knowledge and thinking so it has very likely been superseded. I haven’t included nonfiction works here, but will mention Cato’s Mister Maloga: Daniel Matthews and his mission, Murray River, 1864–1902, also published in 1976. The mission failed, for various reasons, and I don’t know Cato’s take, but reviewer Leonard Ward praises its detail, and says that “As an historical document Mister Maloga earns a place on the bookshelves of those who have at heart the welfare of the Aboriginal people”. Potentially paternalistic, but Cato did support FN rights in her day.
  • Helen Hodgman, Blue skies: apparently this novel was translated into German in 2012. I’ve read and enjoyed Tasmanian-born Hodgman, but not this one. (Lisa’s review)
  • Gwen Kelly, Middle-aged maidens: a new author for me but worth checking out. This, her third novel, was, said the Sydney Morning Herald, “a perceptive portrait of three headmistresses and the staff of an independent girls’ school” and “was considered somewhat controversial in Armidale” where Kelly was living. Her Wikipedia page shares some of the reactions to it, including that it offered a “fierce appraisal of small-town shortcomings … [an] acerbic depiction of a private school for girls in Armidale.” Another was that “the headmistresses’ characters are sketched with sharp and brilliant lines … Gwen Kelly draws from us that complexity of response which is normal in life, rare in literature”, while a third wrote “spiteful, malicious, cunning, intensely readable … Delicious, Ms Kelly … you know your Australia and you’ve a lovely way with words”. Intriguing, eh?
  • Betty Roland, Beyond Capricorn: I have Betty Roland’s memoir, Caviar for breakfast on my TBR, but still haven’t got to it. For those who don’t know her, she had a relationship with Marxist scholar and activist Guido Baracchi, a founder of the Australian Communist Party. They went to the USSR, and while there, according to Wikipedia, she worked on the Moscow Daily News, shared a room with Katharine Susannah Prichard, and smuggled literature into Nazi Germany. Caviar For Breakfast (1979), the first volume of her autobiography, covers this period.
  • Christina Stead, Miss Herbert (The suburban wife): Stead needs no introduction (Bill’s review).

Short stories

  • Carmel Bird, Dimitra: Bird’s first published book, by Orbit (from her website), but it seems to have almost completely disappeared from view (at least in terms of internet searches)
  • Glenda Adams, Lies and stories: a story by Adams was in the first book my reading group did – an anthology. It wasn’t this story, but so much did we enjoy the one we read, that we went on to read a novel.
  • Shirley Hazzard, “A long story short”: published in The New Yorker 26 July 1976 (excerpt from The transit of Venus)
  • Elizabeth Jolley, Five acre virgin and other stories: for many years this collection was my go-to recommendation for people wanting to try Jolley. It captures so much of her preoccupations, style, and thoughts about writing (including reusing your own material).

Poetry

  • Stefanie Bennett, The medium and Tongues and pinnacles: prolific and still around but does not have her own page in Wikipedia.
  • Joanne Burns, Adrenaline flicknife: Burns won the ACT Poetry Prize Judith Wright award, and was shortlisted for and/or won awards in the NSW’s Kenneth Slessor Prize, but not for this collection.
  • Anne Elder, Crazy woman and other poems: Anne Elder’s name is commemorated in the Anne Elder Award for Poetry.
  • Judith Wright, Fourth Quarter: Like Stead, Judith Wright needs no introduction – to Australian readers at least.

Drama

This is not my area of interest and not only are plays best seen, but I think they have an even shorter shelf life. However, a few playwrights were published in 1976, including Dorothy Hewett, who also wrote poetry and novels.

Children’s literature

I won’t list the books here, but most of the authors are well-known to older Australian readers: Hesba Brinsmead, Elyne Mitchell (of The Silver Brumby fame), Ruth Park, Anne Parry (the least known of this group), Joan Phipson, and Eleanor Spence.

Do you have any 50-year-old books in your list of favourites? Several of these authors are important to (and not forgotten by) me, but the book from this year that is the important one is Jolley’s.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Walter Scott Prize

/ Whispering Gums / 52 Comments

Some of you will have come across the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction already. Brona (This Reading Life) recently posted on it, and I have mentioned it in passing a few times on this blog. Wikipedia provides good overview, as does the Prize’s own website, so I am sharing information from both these sites.

Waverley book cover

It is a British literary award that was founded in 2010 by the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch whose ancestry includes Sir Walter Scott. He is generally accepted to be, as Wikipedia puts it, “the originator of historical fiction” with his 1814 novel Waverley (see my post on Volume 1). Its prize money of £30,000 makes it one of the UK’s largest literary awards. Eligible books must be first published in the UK, Ireland or Commonwealth and must, of course, be historical fiction, which, says Wikipedia, they define as fiction in which “the main events take place more than 60 years ago, i.e. outside of any mature personal experience of the author”. As the Prize website explains, the 60 years comes from Waverley’s subtitle, Or, sixty years since.

You will now, I’m sure, have gleaned its relevance for Monday Musings, which is that because Australia is of the Commonwealth, books by Australian authors are eligible. Over the years of the prize, Australian novels have been long- and shortlisted. So, I thought to share them here – to give them another airing, and to identify their main subject matter. Have any topics been more popular than others, I wondered? Let’s see …

Walter Scott Prize Australian shortlistees (2010-2025)

While the prize was first awarded in 2010, an Australian book was not shortlisted until 2013. Perhaps some were longlisted before that (and since), but I can’t see longlists on the Prize’s website, and it would take some gleaning to track them down.

  • 2013: Thomas Keneally, The daughters of Mars: World War 1, and Australian nurses (Kimbofo’s review, with links to other bloggers)
  • 2016: Lucy Treloar, Salt Creek: mid-19th century South Australia, farming struggles and First Nations tensions (Brona’s review)
  • 2017: Hannah Kent, The good people: early 19th century Ireland, and “changelings”
  • 2019: Peter Carey, A long way from home: 1950s Australia seen through the lens of the Redex Car Trials (Kimbofo’s review, on my TBR)
  • 2021: Kate Grenville, A room made of leaves: early 19th century Australia (the Sydney settlement) imagined through the eyes of Elizabeth Macarthur (Brona’s review)
  • 2021: Pip Williams, The dictionary of lost words: early 20th century England, imagining a woman’s contribution to the OED (Brona’s review)
  • 2021: Steven Conte, The Tolstoy Estate: World War 2 (1941), and a German medical unit at the Tolstoy Estate: (my review)
  • 2023: Fiona McFarlane, The sun walks down: late 19th century South Australia, lost child story involving many people, including famers, cameleers and First Nations trackers (Brona’s review)

So far, an Australian hasn’t won, but my, what a showing we had in 2021! As for setting, there’s little concentration – in this tiny sample – on any one time or place. South Australia appears twice, and four of the eight are set in the 19th century. Given none of the authors are First Nations, a couple of the stories include First Nations people, but their history is not the focus. Three of the stories – by Kent, Williams and Conte – are not set in Australia. If there is any one idea coming through, it is that of restoring the role of women in historical events or, simply, in life. This is not surprising given that one of the values of historical fiction, according to American historian Steven Mintz*, is that it

can offer a more inclusive portrait of the past, recover and develop stories that have been lost or forgotten and foreground figures and dissenting and radical perspectives that were relegated to history’s sidelines.

And we all know that women, just one among many groups of disempowered people, were/still are ignored by “history”. This recovery of lost stories – this deeper and wider exploration of history, and all its byways, that the proverbial victors ignored – is why I have come to enjoy historical fiction, a genre I wasn’t much interested in for a long time.

The 2026 longlist has been announced, and it features another Australian work, Melissa Lucashenko’s Edenglassie (my review). It is a good and significant read, and it would be excellent to see it become the first First Nations Australian shortlistee.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on historical fiction and/or this particular prize, or for you to just name a favourite historical novel. Over to you …

* An aside: I didn’t know who Steven Mintz was, but he has a Wikipedia page. I also found this intriguing commentary on his departure from Inside Higher Ed (which is where I found the statement above). He sounds like a thoughtful, decent guy, but he is in his 70s, so I don’t blame him for wanting to move into a quieter life.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Some New Releases in 2026

/ Whispering Gums / 23 Comments

For some years now, my first Monday Musings of the year has comprised a selected list of new Australian book releases for the coming year. For many years, the bulk of this post came from a comprehensive list prepared by Jane Sullivan for the Sydney Morning Herald. Last year that changed to something more selective, and this year, I think it is similar, but is paywalled.

So, this year the research is all mine, mainly from publisher websites, but also from a couple of other sources like publisher emails. The sources varied in how well and thoroughly they shared their forthcoming titles, and many only cover the early part of the year, as you can tell from my list.

Links on the authors’ names are to my posts on those authors.

Fiction

As always, I have included some but not all the genre fiction I found to keep the list manageable and somewhat focused, and I have not included books for younger readers. Here’s my selection:

  • Debra Adelaide, When I am sixty-four (March, UQP): based on Adelaide’s friendship with Gabrielle Carey
  • Romy Ash, Mantle (April, Ultimo Press)
  • Johanna Bell, Department of the Vanishing (March, Transit Lounge)
  • Bridie Blake, The boyfriend clause (March, Text): debut novel (romance)
  • Brendan Colley, The season for flying saucers (April, Transit Lounge)
  • Abby Corson, Happy woman (April, Ultimo Press): cosy crime
  • Amanda Curtin, Six days (August, Upswell)
  • Alan Fyfe, The cross thieves (March, Transit Lounge)
  • Sulari Gentill, Chasing Odysseus (The Hero Trilogy, Book 1, plus Books 2 & 3) (May, Ultimo Press)
  • Robert Gott, The winter murders (latest in the Seasonal Murders) (August, Scribe)
  • Christine Gregory, The informant (May, Ultimo Press)
  • Victoria Hannan, I love the whole world! (August, Penguin)
  • Anita Heiss, The paradise pact (March, Simon and Schuster): First Nations
  • Eva Hornung, The minstrels (March, Text)
  • Ian Kemish, Two islands (February, UQP): debut novel
  • George Kemp, Soft serve (February, UQP): debut novel
  • Emily Lighezzolo, Life drawing (March, UQP)
  • Laure McPhee-Browne, Worry doll (June, Scribe)
  • Melissa Manning, Frogsong (March, UQP)
  • Sean Micallef, DeAth takes a holiday (March, Ultimo Press)
  • Jaclyn Moriarty, Time travel for beginners (August, Ultimo Press)
  • John Morrissey, Bird deity (February, Text): First Nations
  • Angela O’Keeffe, Phantom days (April, UQP)
  • Ellena Savage, The ruiners (no date, Summit)
  • Bobuq Sayed, No god but us (May, Ultimo Press): debut novel
  • M.L. Stedman, A far-flung life (March, Penguin)
  • Olivia Tolich, Side character energy (February, Text): debut novel (romance)
  • Steve Toltz, A rising of the lights (April, Penguin)
  • Sita Walker, In a common hour (January, Ultimo Press)
  • Dave Warner, Sound mind dead body (no date, Fremantle Press)
  • Fiona Wilkes, I remember everything (no date, Fremantle Press)
  • Chloe Wilson, The turnbacks (May, Penguin): debut novel
  • Michael Winkler, Griefdogg (March, Text)
  • Fiona Wright, Kill your boomers (March, Ultimo Press)

There are a few familiar names here, including some from whom we’ve not heard for a while (like Eva Hornung, Amanda Curtin and Romy Ash) and others who have published in other forms but are making their novel debuts (like Chloe Wilson).

Short stories

None that I saw.

Nonfiction

Divided into two broad categories …

Life-writing (loosely defined)

  • Cynthia Banham, Mother shadow: A meditation on maternal inheritance (April, Upswell)
  • Clara Brack, The secret landscapes: On not pleasing your mother (April, Upswell)
  • Valerie A Brown, The girl on the roof: The life of a change-maker (June, Scribe)
  • David Carlin and Peta Murray, How to dress for old age (February, Upswell)
  • Rosalie Ham, Look after your feet (April, Allen & Unwin)
  • Kate Holden, The ruin of magic: Longing and belonging in strange times (April, Black Inc)
  • Susan Lever, A.D. Hope: A life (March, La Trobe University Press/Black Inc)
  • Linda Martin, A tale of two publishing houses: A behind-the-scenes look into the publishing industry (April, Fremantle Press)
  • Jim Morrison, Tony Hansen, Alan Carter and Steve Mickler (ed), Why weren’t we told? (November, Upswell): First Nations stolen generation stories
  • Patrick Mullins, The stained man: a crime, a scandal, and the making of a nation (April, Scribe)
  • Lisa Wilkinson, The Titanic story of Evelyn (April, Hachette)
  • Laura Elizabeth Woollett, Hell days (September, Scribe)

History and other non-fiction

  • Julie Andrews, Where’s all the community? Aboriginal Melbourne revisited (March, Black Inc): First Nations
  • Danielle Clode, The enigmatic echidna: Secrets of the world’s most curious creature (May, Black Inc)
  • Michael Dulaney, Sentinels: how animals warn us of disease (August, Scribe)
  • Peter Hartcher, The Age of Carnivores: How Australia can navigate the new global order (March, Black Inc)
  • Andrew Leigh, The shortest history of innovation (February, Black Inc)
  • Martin McKenzie-Murray, Sirens: Inside the shadow world of first responders (April, Black Inc)
  • Ross McMullin, The light on the hill: An updated history of the Australian Labor Party (June, Scribe)
  • Desmond Manderson, High time: How Australia changed its mind about illegal drugs (April, La Trobe University Press/Black Inc)
  • Murray Pittock, The shortest history of Scotland (February, Black Inc)
  • Erin Vincent, Fourteen ways of looking (March, Upswell)

Poetry

Finally, for poetry lovers, I found these from publisher websites:

  • Beverley Farmer, For the seasons: Haikus (February, Giramondo): posthumous publication
  • Susan Fealy, The deer woman (May, Upswell)
  • Toby Fitch, Or, an autobiography (March, Upswell)
  • Yvette Henry Holt, Fitzroy North 3068 (May, Upswell)
  • Kristen Lang , [re]turn: love notes from the mountain (February, Upswell)
  • Caitlin Maling, Midwest (September, Upswell)
  • Maria van Neerven, Two tongues (February, UQP): First Nations
  • Dženana Vucic, after war (April, UQP)

So far I have read only two from my 2025 lists, one less than I had last year, but I have several on the TBR. Will I finish those, and how will I go this year?

PS I published this on Saturday NOT Monday by mistake! Oh well, you get my list early. If I find more titles I will add them.

Meanwhile, anything here interest you?

Reading highlights for 2025

/ Whispering Gums / 22 Comments

Here we are at my annual highlights time, which for me means posting my reading highlights on December 31, and blogging highlights on January 1. I do my Reading Highlights on the last day of the year, so I will have read (even if not reviewed) all the books I’m going to read in the year, and I call it “highlights” because I don’t do “best” or even, really, “favourite” books. Rather, I try to capture a picture of my reading year. I also include literary highlights, that is, reading-related activities which enhance my reading interests and knowledge.

Literary highlights

This mostly comprises my favourite literary events of the year. I never get to all that I would like – not even close – but those I attend I enjoy. Even where the books or authors may not be my favourite genre or topic, there is always something to learn from writers and other readers.

  • Canberra Writers Festival (CWF): I attended seven sessions this year, and you can find my write-ups on them (plus my posts on all previous festival sessions) on my Canberra Writers Festival tag. This year I attended more panels than conversations, which was not so much intentional as that the panels popped out as offering some interesting discussions. You can seen them all at the link.
  • Awards events: I attended three awards this year: ACT Literary Awards and, the ACT Book of the Year Award (which was my first CWF 2025 session), and the Stella (online) award.
  • Author conversations/book launches: I attended one more than last year. They were the ANU Meet the Author series (Sarah Krasnostein and Helen Garner, and Sofie Laguna); Canberra Writers Festival’s non-festival series (Colum McCann and Helen Garner); and an author tour (Irma Gold). I never get to as many of these as I would like, which is frustrating, but life is just busy.
  • Podcasts: I am not a big podcast follower, mainly because I prefer to have some moments of peace in my life rather than be constantly plugged in. However, I have continued to follow Secrets from the Green Room and this year I also listened to the ABC’s Book Show’s 5-part series, Dear Jane Austen, celebrating Jane Austen’s sesquicentenary. (I particularly loved the conversation with Colm Tóibín who discussed Austen with such a writer’s eye.) I also recommend Francie Finn’s three-part Firestarters by Francie Finn which drew in part from our Australian Women Writers blog posts on forgotten Australian women writers.

Reading highlights

I don’t set reading goals, but I do have basic “rules of thumb”. These are to give focus to Australian and women writers, include First Nations authors and translated literature in my list, and reduce the TBR pile. I didn’t do wonderfully with all these this year but they remain my rules of thumb.

2025 was a disappointing year – reading-wise, I mean – partly due to our regular trips to Melbourne where our children and grandchildren live, and to our two longer holidays (to Cape York and the Torres Strait in May-June and to Japan in August-September).

Now the highlights … each year I present them a bit differently, because each reading year is different. I love seeing how different themes and trends pop out each year. How much of this is due to the publishing zeitgeist and how much to my choices I can’t tell, but I think the former plays a big role. Here are this year’s observations (with links to my reviews on the first mention of a title):

The characters

  • It’s a dog’s life: Last year I came across cross a variety of animals in my reading, but this year the dogs certainly had it. Three authors let us see some or all of their stories from a dog’s point of view, Frank Dalby Davison in Dusty, Sun Jung in My name is Gucci, and Carmel Bird in her short story, “The King’s white hound” (which was published in The Saturday Paper, and which I enjoyed but didn’t manage to post about.)
  • Shocking protagonists: I loved Olive in Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, even though sometimes she wasn’t very nice, she shocked in fact. But, she was honest and could be warm. She felt real . The other protagonist who could be even more shocking at times was Michelle de Kretser’s 24-year-old narrator in Theory & practice. She got up to some seriously unkind stuff but had a story to tell.
  • Vulnerable young people: These are not uncommon in literature, but this year a few were in real peril, most particularly 15-year-old Anna in Angus Gaunt’s novella Anna, but there were also those missing young people in Shelley Burr’s third crime novel Vanish.
  • Family in extremis: Families in trouble are also not uncommon, but Melanie Cheng’s family in The burrow had suffered a terrible sorrow before the novel’s start and were not coping well. My heart – along with that of many readers – went to them.
  • Writers as protagonists: Also not unusual. After all, who do writers know better than writers! And this year, I come across many, including Campbell in Andrew O’Hagan’s Caledonian Road, grieving mother Amy in The burrow, Gucci’s owner in My name is Gucci, the aging, questioning Quin in Brian Castro’s Chinese postman, and the stalled-in-life Fennell in Colum McCann’s Twist.

The subject matter

  • Messy lives and truths: Life – and truth – are messy. What do we mean by “truth” anyhow? I like books that recognise the greys. De Kretser talks of “messy human truths” and Colum McCann writes that “There is no logic. The world is messy”, while Winnie Dunn in Dirt poor islanders describes the “messy truth” of being an Islander.
  • Can art make a difference? This is one of those imponderables, and Irma Gold explores it in Shift, through photographer, Arlie, who is asked by a community leader to “show the world the truth about Kliptown”. It’s not essential, but I do like artists who want to make a difference, even while questioning – as Brian Castro also does in Chinese postman – whether art can indeed achieve anything.
  • Pushing the fiction envelope: I read several books this year – like, Olga Tokarczuk’s House of day, house of night, Chinese postman, Theory & practice – which challenged me (and other readers) because their authors pushed us to think about what a novel is and can be.
  • Would you eat a mushroom? Mushrooms popped up frequently in my reading this year, quite unrelated to the year’s big criminal case, the Leongatha Mushroom Murders trial. Maybe mushrooms have appeared just as often in previous years, but I haven’t noticed? Whatever the reason, they kept popping up, including in Vanish, Anna, and House of day, house of night.
  • Pandemic: With the pandemic now receding into the past, it is starting to appear in more fiction, not always as the main subject but as a backdrop. Sometimes it’s quite a significant backdrop, as in The burrow, while other times it’s a smaller part of the whole, as in Caledonian Road, or affected the writing in some way, as in Twist and Helen Garner’s The season.
  • Truthtellers of the year: I am keeping this category because truthtelling, particularly regarding the “colonial project”, is not done. My favourites this year were the real Wayne Bergman in his and Madelaine Dickie’s Some people want to shoot me, and Louise Erdrich’s fictional Thomas in her historical novel, The night watchman.

The reading life

  • TBR treasures: All my TBR reading this year was worth waiting for, but if I had to name one standout, it would be Olive Kitteridge. I expected to love it, and I did.
  • Surprises of the year: The Russian satirical writer Teffi (my post), whom I discovered via the 1925 Year Club, was the biggest surprise. I now have a collection of her stories in my Kindle library. Others included the African American writer Alice Ruth Moore/Alice Dunbar Nelson (see my posts) and many of the forgotten writers found during my AWW research, including Gertrude Mack (my post). She has not lasted as well as her sisters Louise and Amy, presumably because she was published in newspapers not books, but she was quite the goer.
  • Jane Austen sesquicentenary: I cannot not mention Jane Austen given this was the 250th year of her birth. I didn’t read more Jane, because I read and talk about her every year, but I loved all the love she got!

Some stats …

I don’t read to achieve specific stats, but I do have some reading preferences which I have shared in past years so won’t again here. There has been some skewing in my reading over the three years, and it continues, partly because my life has changed and partly because the research I do for my Australian Women Writers (AWW) blog posts has me reading more older short stories by women. This affects the balance in terms of gender, year of publication and form (short story). So, this year:

  • 85% of my reading was fiction (the same as last year) and 79% of my authors were women, which is a little higher than last year. Both percentages are higher than my long-term average.
  • 50% of the year’s reading comprised works written before 2000, which is around the same as last year, and also higher than recent percentages largely (again) due to my AWW research.
  • 58% of this year’s authors were Australian, which is around the same as last year.
  • In 2023, short stories and novellas comprised over 60% of my year’s reading. This halved in 2024 to just over 30%, and increased a bit this year to just over 40%.
  • My reading of First Nations authors dropped this year, but my reading of translated authors increased by one. I hope to increase both in 2026.

I read four books from my actual TBR, two more than last year! Woohoo! They were Frank Dalby Davison’s Dusty, Paddy O’Reilly’s Other houses, Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, and Margaret Atwood’s Negotiating with the dead.

Tomorrow, I will post my blogging highlights, but now I’ll leave you with a message from one of this year’s books:

Nanna taught me nothing less than what it means to be human, to earn the grace and wisdom that come from surviving darkness and celebrating light. (Andra Putnis, Stories my grandmothers didn’t tell me)

So, huge end-of-year thanks to you who read my posts, engage in discussion, recommend more books and support our little litblogging community. I wish you all the grace and wisdom that books (and life’s lessons) can bring – and a peaceful 2026.

What were your 2025 reading or literary highlights?

Monday musings on Australian literature: Favourite books 2025, Pt 2: Nonfiction

/ Whispering Gums / 28 Comments

Last Monday, I shared the favourite Fiction and Poetry books that had been chosen by various critics and commentators in a select number of sources. I haven’t always shared the nonfiction choices, though I do think it’s worth doing – so this year I am! I won’t repeat the intro from last week, but I will re-share the sources, having edited them slightly to show those which included nonfiction … and remind you that I’ve only included the Aussie choices.

Here are the sources I used:

  • ABC RN Bookshelf (radio broadcaster): Cassie McCullagh, Kate Evans and a panel of bookish guests, Jason Steger (arts journalist and former book editor); Jon Page (bookseller); Robert Goodman (reviewer and literary judge specialising in genre fiction): only shared their on air picks, not their extras which became long
  • Australian Book Review (literary journal): selected across forms by ABR’s reviewers
  • Australian Financial Review (newspaper, traditional and online): shared “the top picks …to add to your holiday reading pile.” (free briefly, but now paywalled.)
  • The Conversation (online news source): experts from across the spectrum of The Conversation’s writing so a diverse list
  • The Guardian (online news source): promotes its list as “Guardian Australia critics and staff pick out the best books of the year”.
  • Readings (independent bookseller): has its staff “vote” for their favourite books of the year, and then lists the Top Ten in various categories, one of which is adult nonfiction, of which I have included the Australian results.

And here are the books …

Life-writing (Memoir/Autobiography/Biography/Diaries)

Book cover
  • Katherine Biber, The last outlaws (Patrick Mullins, ABR; Clare Wright, ABR)
  • David Brooks, A.D. Hope: A memoir of a literary friendship (Tony Hughes-d-Aeth, ABR)
  • Geraldine Brooks, Memorial days (Jenny Wiggins, AFR; Susan Wyndham, The Guardian; Readings)
  • Bob Brown, Defiance (Readings)
  • Candice Chung, Chinese parents don’t say I love you (Readings)
  • Robert Dessaix, Chameleon (Tim Byrne, The Guardian) (on my TBR)
  • Helen Garner, How to end a Story: Collected diaries (Ben Brooker, ABR; Stuart Kells, ABR; Jonathan Ricketson, ABR; Lucy Clark, The Guardian) (see my posts on vol 1 and vol 2 from this collected volume)
  • Moreno Giovannoni, The immigrants (Joseph Cummins, The Guardian)
  • Hannah Kent, Always home, always homesick (Kate Evans, ABC)
  • Josie McSkimming, Gutsy girls (Amanda Lohrey, ABR)
  • Sonia Orchard, Groomed (Clare Wright, ABR)
  • Mandy Sayer, No dancing in the lift (Clare Wright, ABR)
  • Lucy Sussex and Megan Brown, Outrageous fortunes: The adventures of Mary Fortune, crime-writer, and her criminal son George (Stuart Kells, ABR)
  • Marjorie (Nunga) Williams, Old days (Julie Janson, ABR)

History and other nonfiction

  • Geoffrey Blainey, The causes of war (rerelease) (Stuart Kells, ABR)
  • Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson, Conspiracy nation (Joseph Lew, AFR)
  • Liam Byrne, No power greater: A history of union action in Australia (Marilyn Lake)
  • Anne-Marie Condé, The Prime Minister’s potato: And other essays (Patrick Mullins, ABR) (on my TBR)
  • Joel Deane, Catch and kill: The politics of power (rerelease) (Stuart Kells, ABR) 
  • Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper & Sarah Krasnostein, The Mushroom Tapes (Donna Lu, The Guardian; Readings)
  • Juno Gemes, Until justice comes (Mark McKenna, ABR)
  • Alyx Gorman, All women want (Sian Cain, The Guardian)
  • Luke Kemp, Goliath’s curse: The history and future of societal collapse (Tom Doig, The Conversation; John Long, The Conversation)
  • Richard King, Brave new wild: Can technology really save the planet? (Carody Culver, ABR; Clinton Fernandes, ABR)
  • Shino Konishi, Malcolm Allbrook and Tom Griffiths (ed), Reframing Indigenous biography (Kate Fullager, ABR)
  • Natalie Kyriacou, Nature’s last dance: Tales of wonder in an age of extinction (Euan Ritchie, The Conversation)
  • Melissa Lucashenko, Not quite white in the head (Glyn Davis, ABR; Michael Williams, ABR; Readings)
  • Ann McGrath and Jackie Huggins (ed), Deep history: Country and sovereignty (Kate Fullager, ABR)
  • Tom McIlroy, Blue Poles: Jackson Pollock, Gough Whitlam and the painting that changed a nation (Esther Anatolis, ABR; Alex Now, AFR)
  • Mark McKenna, Shortest history of Australia (Patrick Mullins, ABR)
  • Djon Mundine, Windows and mirrors (Victoria Grieves Williams, ABR)
  • Antonia Pont, A plain life: On thinking, feeling and deciding (Julienne van Loon, The Conversation)
  • Margot Riley, Pix: The magazine that told Australia’s story (Kevin Foster, ABR)
  • Sean Scalmer, A fair day’s work: The quest to win back time (Marilyn Lake, ABR)
  • Emma Shortis, After America: Australia and the new world order (Marilyn Lake, ABR)
  • Don Watson, The shortest history of the United States of America (Emma Shortis, The Conversation)
  • Hugh White, Hard new world: Our post-American future (Marilyn Lake, ABR)
  • Tyson Yunkaporta & Megan Kelleher, Snake talk (Readings)

Cookbooks

  • Helen Goh, Baking & the meaning of life (Sian Cain, The Guardian)
  • Rosheen Kaul, Secret sauce (Alyx Gorman, The Guardian)
  • Thi Le, Viet Kieu: Recipes remembered from Vietnam (Yvonne C Lam, The Guardian)

Finally …

One children’s book, as far as I could tell, was chosen, and I’ve not included it anywhere else so here it is:

  • Rae White, with Sha’an d’Anthes (illus.), All the colours of the rainbow (Esther Anatolis, ABR)

A few books were named by two people, with two books named by three, Geraldine Brooks’ Memorial days and Melissa Lucashenko’s Not quite white in the head, and one named by four, Helen Garner’s How to end a Story: Collected diaries. Is it a coincidence that these authors have also written fiction? Or that in terms of my reading wishes, they are up there, though several others are in my sights.

Is there any nonfiction in your sights for 2026? After all, Nonfiction November isn’t that far away if this year is any indication!

Monday musings on Australian literature: Favourite books 2025, Pt 1: Fiction and Poetry

/ Whispering Gums / 34 Comments

Around this time of December, I have, for some years, shared favourite Aussie reads of the year from various sources. Those sources have varied a little from time to time. This year’s are listed below.

This is not a scientific survey. For a start, the choosers’ backgrounds vary. Depending on the source, they may include critics, reviewers, commentators, subject specialists, publishers and/or booksellers. Then, there’s the fact that what they are asked to do varies. For example, some pickers are “allowed” to name several books while others are limited to “one” best (or favourite). And of course, they choose from different sets of books, depending on what they have read, and they use different criteria. In other words, this exercise is more serendipitous than authoritative. But, it still has value.

As always, I’m only including the choosers’ Aussie choices, but I include links to the original article/post so you can read them yourselves, should you so wish.

Here are the sources I used:

  • ABC RN Bookshelf (radio broadcaster): Cassie McCullagh, Kate Evans and a panel of bookish guests, Jason Steger (arts journalist and former book editor); Jon Page (bookseller); Robert Goodman (reviewer and literary judge specialising in genre fiction). I only shared their on air picks, not their extras.
  • Australian Book Review (literary journal): selected from many forms by ABR’s reviewers
  • Australian Financial Review (newspaper, traditional and online): shared “the top picks … to add to your holiday reading pile.” 
  • The Conversation (online news source): experts from across the spectrum of The Conversation’s writing so a diverse list.
  • The Guardian (online news source): promotes its list as “Guardian Australia critics and staff pick out the best books of the year”.
  • Readings (independent bookseller): staff “vote” for their favourite books of the year, then Readings shares the Top Ten in various categories.

To keep it manageable, I am focusing here on fiction (including short stories) and poetry, with a separate post on nonfiction, to follow.

Novels

  • Randa Abdel-Fattah, Discipline (Zora Simic, ABR; Clare Wright, ABR)
  • Shokoofeh Azar, The Gowkaran tree in the middle of our kitchen (Edwina Preston, The Conversation)
  • Dominic Amerena, I want everything (Julian Novitz, ABC; Jon Page, ABC; Andrew Pippos, AFR; Jack Callil, The Guardian) (Kate’s review)
  • Marc Brandi, Eden (Robert Goodman, ABC)
  • Paul Daley, The leap (Julie Janson, ABR; Bridie Jabour, The Guardian)
  • Olivia De Zilva, Plastic budgie (Jo Case, The Conversation)
  • Laura Elvery, Nightingale (Readings)
  • Beverley Farmer, The seal woman (1992, rereleased 2025) (Eve Vincent, The Conversation)
  • Jon Fosse, Septology (Marjon Mossammaparast, ABR)
  • Andrea Goldsmith, The buried life (Readings) (my review)
  • Madeleine Gray, Chosen family (Kate Evans, ABC) (Brona’s review)
  • Fiona Hardy, Unbury the dead (Jon Page, ABC; Readings)
  • James Islington, The strength of the few (Tim Byrne, The Guardian)
  • Brandon Jack, Pissants (Readings) (Kate’s review)
  • Toni Jordan, Tenderfoot (Readings)
  • Vijay Khurana, The passenger seat (Beejay Silcox, The Guardian) (Lisa’s review)
  • Sofie Laguna, The underworld (Sian Cain, The Guardian) (on my TBR, see my conversation post)
  • Charlotte McConaghy, Wild dark shore (Julia Feder, AFR) (Brona’s review)
  • Jasmin McGaughey, Moonlight and dust (Allanah Hunt, The Conversation) (See my CWF post)
  • Lay Maloney, Weaving us together (Melanie Saward, The Conversation)
  • Patrick Marlborough, Nock Loose (Jared Richards, The Guardian)
  • Angie Faye Martin, Melaleuca (Sandra Phillips, The Conversation)
  • Jennifer Mills, Salvage (Robert Goodman, ABC; Alice Grundy, The Conversation) 
  • Judi Morison, Secrets (Paul Daley, The Guardian)
  • Rachel Morton, The sun was electric light (Readings; Seren Heyman-Griffiths, The Guardian)
  • Omar Musa, Fierceland (Kate Evans, ABC; Readings; Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen, The Guardian)
  • Andrew Pippos, The transformations (Jo Case, The Conversation; Cassie McCullagh, ABC; Readings; Zora Simic, ABR)
  • Nicolas Rothwell and Alison Nampitjinpa Anderson, Yilkari: A Desert Suite (Stephen Romei, ABR; John Woinarski, AFR) (on my TBR)
  • Josephine Rowe, Little world (Felicity Plunkett, ABR; Readings; Geordie Williamson, ABR; Fiona Wright, The Conversation) (Lisa’s review)
  • Craig Silvey, Runt and the diabolical dognapping (Jason Steger x 2, ABC and ABR)
  • Jessica Stanley, Consider yourself kissed (Lauren Sams, AFR)
  • Sinéad Stubbins, Stinkbug (Michael Sun, The Guardian)
  • Lenore Thaker, The pearl of Tagai town (Julie Janson, ABR)
  • Madeleine Watts, Elegy, Southwest (Steph Harmon, The Guardian)
  • Sean Wilson, You must remember this (Jason Steger x 2, ABC and ABR) (Kate’s review)

Short stories

  • Tony Birch, Pictures of you: Collected stories (Tony Hughes-d’Aeth, ABR; Julie Janson, ABR; Readings; Geordie Williamson, ABR; BK, The Guardian)
  • Lucy Nelson, Wait here (Marjon Mossammaparast, ABR; Bec Kavanagh, The Guardian)
  • Zoe Terakes, Eros (Dee Jefferson, The Guardian)

Poetry

  • Evelyn Araluen, The rot (Tony Hughes-d’Aeth x 2, ABR and The Conversation; John Kinsella, ABR; Alison Croggon, The Guardian) (on my TBR, see my CWF posts 1 and 2)
  • Eileen Chong, We speak of flowers (Seren Heyman-Griffiths, The Guardian) (Jonathan’s review)
  • Antigone Kefala, Poetry (Marjon Mossammaparast, ABR)
  • Luke Patterson, A savage turn (Felicity Plunkett, ABR; John Kinsella, ABR)
  • Omar Sakr and Safdar Ahmed, The nightmare sequence (Jen Webb, The Conversation)
  • Sara M. Saleh and Zainab Syed with Manal Younus (ed.), Ritual: A collection of Muslim Australian poetry (Esther Anatolis, ABR; Julie Janson, ABR)

Finally …

It’s encouraging to see the increasing diversity in these lists, including (but not only) several First Nations writers, compared with the lists I made just three or four years ago. It’s also interesting to see what books feature most. Popularity doesn’t equal quality, but it does indicate something about what has attracted attention during the year. One book (Tony Birch’s short story collection) was mentioned five times, and three others four times:

  • Tony Birch, Pictures of you (short stories)
  • Dominic Amerena, I want everything
  • Andrew Pippos, The transformations
  • Josephine Rowe, Little world

Of last year’s most mentioned books, several received significant notice at awards time – some winning them – including Michelle de Kretser’s Theory & practice and Fiona McFarlane’s Highway Thirteen.

This year, I read three novels from last year’s (2024) lists, Brian Castro’s Chinese postman, Melanie Cheng’s The burrow, Michelle de Kretser’s Theory & practice.

So, what has caught my eye from this year’s list, besides the one I have read – Andrea Goldsmith’s The buried life – and those on my TBR? Well, many, but in particular Tony Birch’s short story collection. And, I have read Josephine Rowe and Shokoofeh Azar before, so I am keen to read their new books.

If you haven’t seen it you might also like to check out Kate’s list of the top 48 books (from around the world) that appeared on the 54 lists she surveyed.

Thoughts – on this or lists from your neck of the wood?

My reading group’s favourites for 2025

/ Whispering Gums / 34 Comments

Once again, I am sharing my reading group’s top picks for the year, because I think, like me, many of you enjoy hearing about other reading groups.

I’ll start by sharing what we read in the order we read them (with links on titles to my reviews):

Last year, I wrote that our schedule had been less diverse than it had been for a while, with eight of our eleven authors being Australian, seven of whom were Australian women. I’m always happy to support Australian women writers as you know, but diversity in a reading group is good. This year we did mix it up more. Only five of our eleven authors were Australian, four of whom were women. Of the other six, three were by American writers, and three by writers from Great Britain and Ireland. This could sound a little white-anglo focused but there was some diversity in our writers’ backgrounds, with an African American, First Nations American, and three Australians coming from migrant backgrounds (including Winnie Dunn, the first published Tongan Australian novelist). We read four male writers this year, versus two last year, but only one nonfiction work versus three last year. We didn’t read any novels in translation, which I’d love to rectify, and for the first time in a while we read no First Nations Australian work.

The top picks …

Like last year all eleven of our regularly attending members voted, meaning the maximum a book could get was 11 votes, and that there were 33 votes all up. The rules were the same. We had to name our three favourite works, and all were given equal weighting. Last year, the top three positions were closely fought with just a vote between each of the place-getters, but this year we had a runaway winner, and second place was ahead of the pack too, with two then tying for third place. (A bit more like 2023’s Top Picks).

2025’s top three places were:

  1. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (9 votes)
  2. Stories my grandmothers didn’t tell me by Andra Putnis (7 votes)
  3. Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan and The night watchman by Louise Erdrich (4 votes each )

We didn’t name any highly commendeds because the rest of the votes were evenly spread across the rest of the books, with four receiving two votes, one receiving one, and two receiving no votes (not because, as we discussed at our Christmas do, they were disliked so much as they just didn’t jump out at people when it came to choosing three.) Some of the biggest Austen fans in the group didn’t vote for Mansfield Park (which received two votes) because, first, it was a multiple re-read for most of us and we decided to choose from new reads, and second, because it is in a league of its own.

As for my three picks, it was very tough (as always). I got something out of every book I read, and many will stay with me for a long time. There were five that I really wanted to nominate. Unlike last year, the group’s top pick was in my top three, but like last year, and like most years, my three books were all fiction. They were, in alphabetical order, Louise Erdrich’s The night watchman, Percival Everett’s James, and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge. I chose these because Strout took a flawed middle-aged woman and her community and described them with great humanity; because Erdrich captured an important story in First Nations American history and told it through characters who felt whole and real; and because Everett, with clever wit, used language in a way that shows the fundamental role it plays the power dynamic.

Selected comments

Not everyone included comments with their picks, and not all books received comments, but here’s a flavour of what was said:

Cover
  • Olive Kitteridge: Commenters talked about the humour and characterisation that made us come to like and understand a flawed protagonist; one described it beautifully saying “original voice, earthy characters, and quirky stories”.
  • Stories my grandmothers didn’t tell me: Commenters focused on its impact on their feelings, and its meaningful portrayal of the experiences of migration; one described it as “deeply personal [but] also universal”.
  • Caledonian Road: Four votes but only one comment which, however, summed it up perfectly, “loved the depth, breadth, Dickensian layers of multiple characters, and stories of modern London”.
  • The night watchman: The two commenters talked of its evocation of place and characters, and its depiction of a community coming together to oppose unfair laws that threaten to dispossess them more than they already were.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, particularly if you were in a reading group this year. What did your group read and love?

2025 Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award shortlist

/ Whispering Gums / 10 Comments

This is a quick post because I’m on the road in Japan, but I do like the Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Awards, and their shortlist has just been announced, so here is a quick post.

Just to recap if you don’t recollect my previous posts on this award, it is not limited by genre or form – that is both fiction and non-fiction are eligible. The judging is based on “on literary merit, research, readability, and value to the community”. Research and value to the community are interesting criteria. I have written about it before, so if you are interested in its origins and intentions please check that link. Previous winners include historians Alison Bashford and Claire Wright, biologist Tim Low, novelists Helen Garner and Delia Falconer, and journalist Gideon Haigh.

Each of the six finalists receive the $1500 Alex Buzo Shortlist Prize and are eligible for the $4,000 Nib People’s Choice Prize, which, by definition, is awarded by popular vote. The winner will receive $40,000.

The judges for the 2025 award are Sydney based writer, editor and arts producer Lliane Clarke, publisher and award-winning editor Julia Carlomagno, and author and publishing professional Angela Meyer (whom I’ve reviewed a few times here). They said, according to the email I received from Waverley Council which manages the award:

“In reading the nominations this year, we noted the effort, dedication and often bravery required to delve with such depths into topics of personal, political and cultural significance. The shortlisted books display great passion and commitment on the part of the authors and publishers, often years and decades of work, and they are all thoughtfully constructed, absorbing, moving works of literature with great value to the community”.

The email also said that this is the Award’s 24th year, and describe it as “one of Australia’s most high-profile and valuable book prizes, celebrating the most compelling research-based literature published annually”.

The 2025 shortlist

Last year I had, unusually for me, read two of the six shortlisted books, but this year we are back to the status quo! That is, I’ve read none, though most interest me. There were 174 submissions.

  • Helen Ennis (ACT), Max Dupain (biography)
  • Amy McQuire (Qld), Black witness (nonfiction/essays)
  • Rick Morton (NSW), Mean streak (nonfiction)
  • Samah Sabawi (Vic), Cactus pear for my beloved (memoir) 
  • Martin Thomas (ACT), Clever men (history)
  • Tasma Walton (WA), I am Nannertgarrook (historical fiction)

This list seems to be a bit broader, as in less life-writing heavy, than it has sometimes been, but like last year, there is just one work of fiction.

You can vote for the People’s Choice award at this link, but voting closes on October 9.

Have you read any of these books?

Miles Franklin Award 2025 shortlist

/ Whispering Gums / 14 Comments

For some reason, I haven’t posted on the Miles Franklin Award shortlist for a few years, probably partly due to timing because I often travel in the southern hemisphere winter. However, I have time to post on this year’s shortlist that has just been announced, and, what’s more, I have read or will read more of this list than I have for some time. I find the list exciting, mainly because all have caught my attention – though I’ve not read them – before they were listed. That hasn’t always been the case recently.

The shortlist

  • Brian Castro, Chinese postman (Giramondo) (on my reading group’s 2025 schedule) (Lisa’s review): Castro has been shortlisted before
  • Michelle de Kretser, Theory & practice (Text Publishing) (my review): de Kretser has won twice before, and this book recently won the Stella
  • Winnie Dunn, Dirt poor islanders (Hachette Australia) (on my reading group’s 2025 schedule): debut novel by a Tongan Australian writer
  • Julie Janson, Compassion (Magabala Books): sequel to Benevolence (my review); this author’s first listing
  • Siang Lu, Ghost cities (UQP): Lu’s first shortlisting for the MF
  • Fiona McFarlane, Highway 13 (Allen and Unwin) (kimbofo’s review): McFarlane has been shortlisted before; but this book straddles the short story/novel divide. I’m keen to read it.

Some random observations:

  • Five of the six shortlisted writers are writers of colour, reflecting the increasing diversity in Australian publishing.
  • Two of the shortlisted writers – Castro and Lu – are male, but a male writer has not won since 2016 (AS Patrić’s, Black rock white city – my review).
  • “Each of the six books investigates race, class and gender in contemporary Australia but in different ways. It’s very hard to compare books like Ghost Cities and Dirt Poor Islanders because they’re written in such distinct ways, but they both encourage us to think about narrative and who owns stories” (from Sarah L’Estrange of the ABC).
  • One of the books, Highway 13, is more like a short story collection, and others are “quite formless”, says Declan Fry (of the ABC) who approves the trend.
  • There’s a wide spread of publishers, including a few independent Australian ones, which is always good to see as these small publishers do the hard yards with our literary writers

For more discussion by the ABC RN’s book people – on the shortlist and on each of the books – check out this page.

For posterity’s sake, here was the longlist

  • Brian Castro, Chinese postman
  • Melanie Cheng, The Burrow (my review)
  • Michelle de Kretser, Theory & practice
  • Winnie Dunn, Dirt Poor Islanders
  • Julie Janson, Compassion
  • Yumna Kassa, Politica (on my TBR)
  • Siang Lu, Ghost Cities
  • Fiona McFarlane, Highway 13
  • Raeden Richardson, The degenerates (Lisa’s review)
  • Tim Winton, Juice (kimbofo’s review) 

Each of the shortlisted writers will receive $5000 from the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund, with the winner receiving $60,000 prize.

This year’s judging panel comprises Richard Neville (Mitchell Librarian of the State Library of NSW and Chair), Associate Professor Jumana Bayeh (literary scholar), Dr Mridula Nath Chakraborty (literary scholar and translator), Professor Tony Hughes-d’Aeth (literary scholar and author) and Professor Hsu-Ming Teo (author and literary scholar).

ArtsHub, from which I drew the names on the judging panel, quotes the judges as saying:

“The shortlist for the 2025 Miles Franklin Literary Award celebrates writing that refuses to compromise. Each of these works vitalises the form of the novel and invents new languages for the Australian experience.”  

“Vitalises the form of the novel” and “invents new languages for the Australian experience” sound positive to me. Finding language for our experience is the issue, many of you will recognise, that I’ve found constantly in my Trove searches about Australian literature. It’s something that should never stop. As our society changes (its makeup for a start), so does our culture, and so also should the language we use to explore and reflect that.

The winner will be announced on 24 July

What do you think of the shortlist?