The Australian Fiction Prize

The Australian Fiction Prize: your questions answered. Plus, Jewish book week, and a famous son returns to Sydney

Where The Wild Things Are

The Australian Fiction Prize is going to be the prize to win. This I know because of the wonderful response I’ve had, since we called for entries last week.

I heard from not one but two literary festivals, both of which are keen to see whether the winner might become available for appearances. Let’s hope so!

A few people also wrote in with questions, and I’m pleased to provide some answers:

a) Yes, it’s entirely possible that the winner will be asked to attend literary festivals, and it will be up to them whether they want to go.

b) No, you don’t have to be an “emerging writer” to enter. You can be an established writer.

c) Yes, if you’ve entered your work in other prizes, and it hasn’t won, you can still enter ours.

d) No, you can’t enter if your entry has already been ­published, and that includes self-published.

e) Yes, we hope the prize thrives in years to come, so if you don’t get an entry in this year, you could always try again next year.

f) The closing date for entries is August 2 and you will find the form here: https://hcau.snapforms.com.au/form/the-australian-fiction-prize-2024-entry-form

Good luck everyone. I’m excited for you all.

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Paris in Ruins by Sebastian Smee

Long-time readers of The Australian will remember Sebastian Smee, who ran away to Boston, and won a Pulitzer Prize.

I’m thrilled to let you know that he’s written a book, Paris in Ruins, and he’s coming back to Australia to promote it in September. Half a dozen of our esteemed and valued book critics have already asked me if they can interview him and/or review the book, as if I hadn’t already decided to snaffle it up myself. And I’ve invited him to lunch! More to come.

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Festival news: the Melbourne Jewish Book Week’s biennial festival is back on. The main day is August 18 at the Pullman Hotel, Albert Park, in Victoria. It’s an always lively, never dull celebration of books by Jewish authors and/or books on Jewish themes. I won’t be able to get there, which is an absolute tragedy because Hila Blum, the author of one of my favourite books of 2023, How To Love Your Daughter, will be there! I did not know until they told me that she is also a literary editor, which gave me hope that I will one day write a book as good as How To Love Your Daughter, which I read from cover to cover in a very short period of time while on holiday last summer. I’m also devastated to be missing Max and The Wild Things, which is billed as “an interactive theatre show” based on the late, great Maurice Sendak’siconic Where The Wild Things Are, which was the book that my children wanted over and over and over again when they were small. Tickets here: https://mjbw.com.au/

How To Love Your Daughter by Hila Blum

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Today’s pages include a review of Evie Wyld’s new book. I’m alerting you to it because she’s fabulously talented. Evie was the first writer to win both the Miles Franklin and the Stella Prize. She grew up in Australia and Britain, and she is the part-owner of Review, a small bookshop in London. Besides the above, she’s won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and a Betty Trask Award; the Encore Award and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. She was also shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Inter­national Dublin Literary Award. You must read her new book.

Also today: is Stephen King better at horror than anyone else? Probably. The man who wrote the book that became the film Shawshank Redemption is forever being dissed by snooty types. Why? It makes no sense. Plus we have an extract from a book about an Anzac who deserves our respect, and plenty more besides, including a sublime poem by David Mason. Enjoy.