WSU publishing house wins a double in PM’s literature awards

University of Western Sydney publishing house Giramondo is celebrating a win for two of its authors in the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.

Western Sydney University’s Ivor Indyk, publisher of the Giramondo imprint.

In today’s Higher Ed Daily Brief: unique double win, starry-eyed ambition

WSU publishing house on top

The University of Western Sydney’s publishing house Giramondo is celebrating a win for two of its authors in this week’s Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.

Gerald Murnane won the fiction category for Border Districts, which was described by judges as a ‘perfectly formed short work’. And Brian Castro won the poetry category for his verse novel Blindness and Rage: a Phantasmagoria, which judges said was as “notable for its mordant wit, its rich allusiveness and the invigorating fluency of its verse”.

Ivor Indyk, who is the publisher of the Giramondo imprint, said it was “a wonderful experience, something quite unique” to have two winners in one week”.

“Giramondo has now had five winners of the Prime Minister’s Awards, including Felicity Castagna’s young adult novel The Incredible Here and Now, set in Parramatta,” said Professor Indyk, who is also the Whitlam Chair in WSU’s Writing and Society Research Centre.

“None of this would have been possible without the continuing support of Western Sydney University — great literature can take a long time to be recognised, as both Gerald Murnane and Brian Castro know. You’re really publishing for the future,” he said.

Astronomy challenge

Australian scientists will lead the design for a new system on one of the world’s most powerful ground based telescopes which will make it even more powerful. A team from the Australian National University and Macquarie University will design the $32 million adaptive optics system which will be added to one of the eight metre telescopes at the European Southern Observatory in Chile.

The system will adjust for the refractive effect on starlight of the atmosphere, particularly the layers of air at different temperatures and pressures which blur telescope images.

The collaboration between the two universities — which make up the Australian Astronomical Optics consortium — is expected to lead to images up to three times sharper than those from the Hubble space telescope.

In return for the design work, Australian astronomers will receive observation time on the telescope.