Double date for poets named in PM’s literary shortlist

Married poets Judith Beveridge and Stephen Edgar have each been shortlisted in the Prime Minister's Literary Awards.

Published writers, Peter Skryznecki and Judith Beveridge, guest speakers at the Writer's Festival, at Cabramatta library. 20.05.04. Picture: Nick Andrean.

Married poets Judith Beveridge and Stephen Edgar doubled their chances of taking home the nation’s richest poetry prize yesterday, each shortlisted in the Prime Minister's Literary Awards.

Beveridge is in contention for the $80,000 prize for Devadatta’s Poems and her husband for ­Exhibits of the Sun. A recent study found the average income of Australian poets is $4000 a year.

“We were both checking our emails in our respective studies and had both received emails from our publishers alerting us to the shortlisting,’’ Edgar said last night. “We came dashing out to almost collide in the corridor calling out: ‘We’re both shortlisted’.”

They face strong competition from David Malouf, shortlisted for Earth Hour, Geoffrey Lehmann (Poems 1957-2013) and Alex Skovron (Towards the Equator).

Elsewhere, Sydney author ­Elizabeth Harrower, 87, continued her literary renaissance with a shortlisting in the fiction category for her novel In Certain ­Circles. Also shortlisted is dual Booker Prize winner Peter Carey ( Amnesia), Fremantle novelist Joan London (The Golden Age), Melbourne author Sonya Hartnett (Golden Boys) and Tasmanian writer Rohan Wilson (To Name Those Lost).

The nonfiction award is contested by Darleen Bugney (John Olsen: An Artist’s Life), Barrie Cassidy (Private Bill), Helen Garner (This House of Grief), John Gascoigne (Encountering the Pacific: In the Age of Enlightenment) and Michael Wilding (Wild Bleak Bohemia: Marcus Clarke, Adam Lindsay Gordon and Henry Kendall).

The history award, the focus of controversy last year, is between Alan Atkinson (TheEuropeans in Australia, Volume Three: Nation), Peter Brune (Descent into Hell), Ross Coulthart (Charles Bean), Anne Henderson (Menzies at War), and David Horner (The Spy Catchers: The Official History of ASIO, Volume 1).

Prizes will also be awarded for young adult fiction and children’s fiction. Each category is worth $80,000 to the winner.

A date and place for the awards has yet to be confirmed.