Some days, I just bubble over with bookish excitement.
Today is one of those days.
The Australian – your national daily, and the only not only surviving but thriving broadsheet – this week announced the creation of a prestigious new prize for literature.
The Australian Fiction Prize will be for a book-length work of fiction. It will be open to Australian writers, regardless of age.
The winner will receive prize money of $20,000, plus an advance of $15,000, but what really sets the prize apart isn’t a cheque or a trophy – it’s publication.
HarperCollins Australia will publish the winning manuscript as a novel, meaning the winning entry will take it’s place on the nation’s bookshelves, alongside novels by celebrated HarperCollins writers including Trent Dalton, Julia Baird, Nikki Gemmell, Dervla McTiernan and Holly Ringland.
The prize has been created as part of The Australian’s 60th birthday celebrations. It’s also a key part of our ongoing and proud commitment to a vibrant cultural life.
Editor-in-chief Michelle Gunn – she who often stops by my desk to say, hey, got any good book recommendations? – said: “Storytelling is in our DNA here at The Australian.”
It’s so true.
We tell the true story of this great land, in our news pages, in our magazine, and in our arts supplements, every single day. We are conscious, always, of not being a Sydney paper, or a Melbourne paper, but a national paper, with readers in Penguin, and Franklin, and Tootgarook, and up by the Daintree, and way out back, in the red-dirt goldfields.
As Michelle said, this prize is for a writer who can “stir our hearts and imaginations” with a tale perhaps as old as the land itself, or else as new as the baby born in a bush hospital, this morning.
The Australian Fiction Prize will build on the legacy of the old Vogel’s Award, previously sponsored by The Australian, Allen & Unwin, and Vogel’s.
We all know how successful that was: the judges of the Vogel’s award (which was for young writers) discovered a young Tim Winton, who would go on to win four Miles Franklin Awards; Orange Prize winner Kate Grenville; and Andrew McGahan, who won it for Praise. The final winner of the Vogel’s Award will be published in June.
The new fiction prize will be open for entries in May. I’ll be one of the judges, and couldn’t be prouder. What an honour. Bubbling over? You bet I am.
■ ■ ■
Now to the rest of the book world …
It’s often called a “gentleman’s industry” meaning we don’t like to gossip, but I think it’s fair to say that the talk of the town last week was the departure, from Allen & Unwin, of the spectacularly successful publisher, Jane Palfreyman.
You may know the name, but if not, you can take it from me: this is a blow for them, and a boon for Simon & Schuster, which is where she’s headed.
Palfreyman publishes superstar writer Chris Hammer. If he walks with her, well, that’s many millions of dollars out the door. She also publishes Charlotte Wood, and Craig Silvey, and Bri Lee and she published The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas, which has sold more than 1.5 million copies.
In a letter to industry folk, Palfreyman apologised for the news coming “out of the blue. I had not ever intended to leave A & U but I have been offered an opportunity I couldn’t say no to.”
She’s going to head up the re-imagined, resurrected Summit imprint. For sure, some writers will walk with her, because they adore her, because she believes in them. Others won’t be able to go, because they’ll be stitched into contracts tighter than the pants on a Mills and Boon cowboy novel.
It’s fair to say that Palfreyman’s move intensifies the world of pain in which Allen & Unwin has found itself in recent years.
Industry types will know that it all started when their publishing director, Tom Gilliatt, left. He’d been responsible for some monster deals over the course of his career (not all of them at Allen & Unwin, it must be said) having published Schapelle Corby, Peter Cosgrove, and the darling and much missed Les Carlyon.
Then Kelly Fagan, who stayed on for a while longer, also departed. Her “book” – the combined value of the deals she did for Allen & Unwin – was worth about $6m a year. But she felt her complaint of being sexually harassed by a colleague had been poorly handled, and took legal action. The matter was settled, and she left.
Now Palfreyman has gone, and it’s fair to say that it’s all a bit fraught. Company boss Patrick Gallagher sometimes talks about selling the business and taking up cricket, but could he ever do it?
But hooray for Simon & Schuster, who are clearly pursuing a growth strategy, meaning more money for more writers and more Australian books on the shelves.
■ ■ ■
Three cheers for Rosemarie Milsom, director of the Newcastle Writers Festival, for standing firm in the face of those who seek to silence writers.
Milsom has been contacted by the Newcastle Mums for Palestine group on Instagram, urging that she remove Jewish singer Deborah Conway from her program in September.
It wasn’t her first brush with bullying. A separate group had already been in touch, ordering her to remove Clementine Ford from the program. Milsom said: “We will not be asking either writer to leave.”
The women behind Newcastle Mums for Palestine were miffed, saying her response “reeks of white feminism” but Rosemarie said: “The festival believes respectful discussion is more productive than silencing or excluding those with whom we disagree.”
Rosemarie Milsom, director, Newcastle Writers Festival, you are a champion.
■ ■ ■
To the mailbag: Rod McLennan of Brunswick West wrote to say that last week’s item about the so-called Angel of Durban, Ethel Campbell, prompted him to dig out the WWI diary of his father, Private Frederick Stuart McLennan, who, after leaving Australia, took ill aboard the ship.
He was put into hospital upon arrival in Durban on 11 August 1917, and was taken to a rest home, to recuperate. His diary then records (in part):
22 August 1917: I went to sports in the park. Met Miss Cambell (his spelling) and had a cup of tea.
24 August 1917: Met Miss Cambell in town and had a cup of tea.
29 August 1917: Mrs Lowe came to YMCA to see me. She is a real good sport and full of life.
31 August 1917: The city is full of Australian wounded.
6 September 1917: I went before the medical board and am passed fit.
He was promptly shipped out to England and subsequently arrived in the trenches in France where he was wounded. Fortunately the war was over by the time he was again ready for duty.
He didn’t get to see Miss Campbell during her visit to Australia in 1923, “because he was busily engaged in creating a dairy farm on a Soldier Settler block in South Western Victoria. He later married, and fathered seven children of which I am one of the three surviving members and in my 93rd year.”
God bless you, Mr McLennan, and thank you for writing.
■ ■ ■
There was a lovely lunch this week to celebrate the announcement of the short list for the 2024 Stella Prize. Chair of the judging panel, Beejay Silcox, said the judges were unanimous in their decisions, adding: “All of life and death is here in these pages: illness, madness, love, sex, slaughter, parenthood … but none of the books on this shortlist tell readers what to think. They do not hector, lecture or preach … they trust us to make up our own minds.”
In alphabetical order by author’s first name, the list includes:
■Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright (Giramondo Publishing)
■ Feast by Emily O’Grady (Allen & Unwin)
■ Abandon Every Hope: Essays for the Dead by Hayley Singer (Upswell Publishing)
■Body Friend by Katherine Brabon (Ultimo Press)
■The Swift Dark Tide by Katia Ariel (Gazebo Books)
■Hospital by Sanya Rushdi (Giramondo Publishing)
Thanks to the generous support of the McLean Foundation and Stella Forever Fund, each of the short-listed authors receives $4000 in prize money.
Myself, I was thrilled to see not one but two former winners of the Vogel on the list: Emily O’Grady won the Vogel for The Yellow House in 2018, and Katherine Brabon won for The Memory Artist in 2016, which just goes to show that we do know what we’re doing when we pick a winner.
■ ■ ■
Brisbane poet Svetlana Sterlin, who is also a swim coach, as passionate about water and moving through it as she is about words, has won the 2023 Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest Award valued at $40,000.
Presented by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney, the prize is for her book-length manuscript, called If Movement Were A Language.
Svetlana’s early work was set in the world of fantasy, but this work is mainly set poolside, since swimming was one of her life’s constants, even as she moved around, often, as a child (her father is also a successful swim coach).
Her writing has previously been recognised in the 2023 Richell Prize and the State Library of Queensland Young Writers Award. If that were not enough, she’s the founding editor of swim meet lit mag, which has this lovely note on its website: “While our themes aren’t strict, our editor is particularly interested in submissions from swimmers (current or former), or about swimming … If your work has nothing to do with swimming, that doesn’t mean we don’t want to see it! Send us something you’d be proud to see published.”
She sounds lovely doesn’t she?
■ ■ ■
Today’s pages: Jim Moginie of Midnight Oil was adopted. He tackles his crisis of identity and many other topics in his memoir, The Silver River. You’ll find the review on page 13.
Should the new Gabriel Garcia Marquez ever have seen the light of day? He didn’t complete the book, which was written during the early stages of his dementia, and he left instructions that it never be published, because he didn’t think it was up to scratch. His sons defied his wishes, and reviews have been mixed. Geordie Williamson has his say on page 16.
Also today, French food! Who doesn’t love it? Christopher Zinn reviews a fabulous new French cookbook, published by Phaidon, in his signature style, which involves trying the recipes for you. My man bought the Pernod, and I made the scalloped potatoes. Did I use butter? My word I did.
As ever you can reach me with your feedback at overingtonc@theaustralian.com.au. Enjoy!
More Coverage
No sax, please, he’s following his heart
Master sax player Shabaka Hutchings has taken to the ancient, end-blown Japanese bamboo shakuhachi flute to lead his new band, Shabaka.
‘It feels like we made it on a different planet’: Severance returns
After a three-year absence, Ben Stiller’s mind-bending corporate satire is back.