The Stella Prize News

From The Stella Prize blog:

We are delighted to announce that The Stella Prize, Australia’s first major literary prize for women’s writing, will be awarded for the first time in April 2013. The $50,000 Prize will be presented for the best work of literature published in 2012 by an Australian woman. Entries are open from now until Thursday 15 November.

Read more here.

Changes to AWW - and a better way to post reviews

For some time, it has been obvious that the AWW challenge has been a victim of its own success. Signing up and adding reviews has become so impractical that some challenge participants have stopped adding their reviews. Even so, the challenge has generated nearly 1100 reviews.

In anticipation of continuing the AWW challenge into 2013, a group of book bloggers has been discussing how to create a better system. As a result of these discussions, the AWW challenge will shift to WordPress for 2013. A better way of signing up, linking to reviews, and indicating completion of the challenge will be implemented: instead of the awkward Mr Linky, Google forms will be adopted.

New Google form for uploading links to reviews

Apart from making it much easier to find and upload reviews, the new forms will automatically enter relevant data on spreadsheets on the new AWW site. (The WordPress site is still in draft form, but you can see what it looks like here.)

The team of bookbloggers who have agreed to help with next year's challenge will be able to sort the reviews into genres and special interest areas, and post monthly "round-ups" of reviews. Subscribers will be able to subscribe to the new blog, if they wish, via specific categories, such as "literary", "crime", "YA" etc. (If you like, you can start subscribing to the new site straightaway, as all posts here will be cross-posted there. You might just need to be patient while we bring the different components of the site together. The subscription via category will be available once the domain name is sorted.)

In 2013, the challenge will have all the features of this year's challenge, and it will also include a "read only" component. This will enable people who don't have blogs or GoodReads pages to join in the conversation. It will also encourage book groups to sign up to the challenge - pledging to have at least a few books by Australian women on their 2013 reading lists. (If you have an existing book group you want to promote, or would like to join a book group, see here.)

With the new improved site, we hope to continue with the mission to "support and promote" books by Australian women, and to contribute to the excitement surrounding writing by Australian women in the lead up to next year's inaugural Stella Prize.

~

If you're a regular AWW challenge participant still uploading reviews, you'll notice that the AWW Blogger Challenge page now incorporates a Google form for linking your reviews. If you're happy to start using this form straightaway to upload your review, please go ahead. It will mean one less data entry for the archive.

If you strike any problems with the new system, please let me know. Comments on the challenge page have been reopened for that purpose.

Queensland Literary Award winners and Melbourne Prize finalists

Queensland Literary Award winners

Congratulations to the winners of the Queensland Literary Fiction Awards, including:

• Siv Parker, Story: David Unaipon Award for Unpublished Indigenous Writer
• Janette Turner Hospital, Turbulence: Steele Rudd Award for Short Stories 
• Robin de Crespiny, The People Smuggler: Nonfiction Award
• Catherine Titasey, Island of the Unexpected: QLD Emerging Author 
• Sue Smith, Mabo: Television Script Award 
• Angela Betzien, War Crimes: Drama Script Award
• Briony Stewart Kumiko and the Shadow Catchers: Children's Book Award 
• Louise Fox, Dead Europe (adapted from the novel by Christos Tsiolkas): Film Script Award - screen writer

See full list here.

In other news, finalists for the Melbourne Prize have been announced. Winners will be announced November 7th. The finalists include:

Melbourne Prize for Literature 2012

• Alison Lester
• Joanna Murray-Smith

Best Writing Award 2012

• Anna Goldsworthy, Piano Lessons 
• Sonya Hartnett, The Children of the King 
• Favel Parrett, Past the Shallows 
• Carrie Tiffany, Mateship with Birds

More information here.

Has anyone reviewed the books by De Crespigny, Goldsworthy or Hartnett for the challenge?

NB: This post will be cross-posted to the AWW test website on WordPress. Plans are underway for the challenge to continue into 2013 at that site. 

Update from AWW Facebook page: Emma Perry reviewed The Children of the King for the challenge on My Book Corner.

2012 Davitt Awards: How well do you know your crime?

The 2012 Davitt Awards will be announced tonight at a dinner in Melbourne. The Davitts are a national crime writing award sponsored by Sisters in Crime Australia. They are awarded each year for the best crime books by Australian women. The categories are best Adult Fiction, Children's/YA, True Crime, Debut and Reader's Choice.

"Sisters in Crime Australia named the award The Davitt in honour of Ellen Davitt (1812-1879) who wrote Australia’s first mystery novel, Force and Fraud  in 1865. Her achievement is extraordinary when it is considered that Wilke’s Collins’ The Woman in White, generally regarded as the first full-length mystery novel, was published only in 1860. Force and Fraud was serialised in the Australian Journal, starting with its very first issue. It begins with a murder and ends with its solution, with red herrings, blackmail, and a dramatic court scene in between." (From the Sisters in Crime website.)

The short- and long-listed books are given below, along with links to AWW reviews. What is noticeable is how few of the long-listed books have been reviewed for the challenge. Notable exceptions are when the book is cross-genre, especially with Speculative Fiction. One reason for this may be that these are 2011 titles, rather than new releases. Current AWW crime reviews may be of books that qualify for next year's awards. However this could also indicate that Australian women's crime writing is not as well known in Australia as, for example, romance, or at least not among challenge participants.

How many of the following books have you read?

(If your AWW review of one of the following has been overlooked, or if you reviewed one or more of these books in previous years, please mention your review in the comments below.)

Adult Crime Fiction
Shortlist

• Jaye Ford, Beyond Fear (Bantam/Random) Kevin Rennie,
• Sulari Gentill, Decline in Prophets (Pantera Press) Caroline Sully
• Carolyn Morwood, Death and the Spanish Lady (Pulp Fiction) Crime Pieces, Naturally Dotty#
• Jennifer Rowe, Love Honour & O'Brien (Allen & Unwin)
• Kim Westwood, The Courier’s New Bicycle (Harper Voyager), Mark Webb, David Golding, Annabel Smith, Jason Nahrung, Bookonaut
• Helene Young, Shattered Sky (Hachette Australia), Bookdout, 1girl2manybooks,  

Longlist

• Sydney Bauer, The 3rd Victim (PanMacmillan)
• A.A. Bell, Hindsight  (HarperCollins)
• Claire Corbett, When We Have Wings (Allen & Unwin) Tsana, CAR Torres V, Annabel Smith, Angela @ Literary Minded, Mark Webb, Ann-Marie Sjoberg, Bookonaut
• Sandy Curtis, Fatal Flaw (Clan Destine Press)
• Miranda Darling, The Siren’s Sting (Allen & Unwin)
• Virginia Duigan, The Precipice (Random House), Librarians Adrift, Bernadette,
• Y A Erskine, The Brotherhood (Bantam/Random House): 1girl2manybooks, Brenda, Crime Pieces, Bookdout, Oanh,
• Helen Fitzgerald, The Donor (Allen & Unwin)
• Carol Gibson, Click Click, You’re Dead (Zeus Publications)
• H.M. Goltz, Death by Sugar (Atlas Productions Publishing Company)
• Kerry Greenwood (interviewed by Tara Moss), Cooking the Books (Allen & Unwin) Tenna Miller,
• Judy Johnson, The Secret Fate of Mary Watson (HarperCollins)
• Sylvia Johnson, Watch Out for Me (Allen & Unwin), Helen McKenna, Bernadette,
• Adriana Koulias, The Sixth Key (Random House)
• Phyllis King, ed., Scarlet Stiletto: The Second Cut (Clan Destine Press) [Readers Choice vote by SinC members only] Narelle Harris
• Nicole Watson, The Boundary (University of Queensland Press) Bookdout,
• Tracey O’Hara, Death’s Sweet Embrace (Harper Voyager)

Young Adult/Children’s
Shortlist

• Ursula Dubosarsky, The Golden Day (Allen & Unwin) Suburban Sonnet,
• Nansi Kunze, Dangerously Placed (Random House)
• Meg McKinlay, Surface Tension (Walker Books) Michelle

Longlist

• J.C Burke, Pig Boy (Random House)
• Susan Green, The Truth about Verity Sparks (Walker Books)
• Jacqueline Harvey, Alice-Miranda at Sea (Random House)
• H J Harper, Star League series Book 1: Lights, Camera, Action Hero!; Book 2: Curse of the Werewolf; Book 3: Raising the Dead; Book 4: The Ninja Code (Random House)
• Karen Healey, The Shattering (Allen & Unwin)
• Gabrielle Lord, Conspiracy 365 (Scholastic Australia)
• Sophie Masson, The Understudy’s Revenge (Scholastic Australia)
• Tara Moss, The Spider Goddess (PanMacmillan Australia), Phillip A Ellis, Duke,
• Belinda Murrell, The Ivory Rose (Random House)
• Joanne Van Os, The Secret of the Lonely Isles (Random House)
• Lili Wilkinson, A Pocketful of Eyes (Allen & Unwin)

True Crime  
Shortlist

• Wendy Lewis, The Australian Book of Family Murders (Pier 9/Murdoch Books)
• Liz Porter, Cold Case Files: Past crimes solved by new forensic science (PanMacmillan)

Longlist

• Carol Baxter, Captain Thunderbolt and His Lady: The true story of bushrangers Frederick Ward and Mary Ann Bugg (Allen & Unwin)
• Jo Chandler and Christine Nixon, Fair Cop: Christine Nixon (Melbourne University Press)
• Rachael Jane Chin, Nice Girl: Whatever Happened To Baby Tegan Lane? (Simon & Schuster)
• Helen Cummings, Blood Vows: a haunting memoir of marriage and murder (The Five Mile Press)
• Nichola Garvey, Beating the Odds (Harper Collins)
• Fiona Harari, A Tragedy in Two Acts: Marcus Einfeld and Teresa Brennan (Victory Books)
• Vikki Petraitis, The Frankston Serial Killer (Clan Destine Press)

 NB: This post will be cross-posted with the new, AWW test site on WordPress.
# Inadvertently left off original post (thanks Alex Adsett for noticing)

2012 Queensland Literary Award Shortlist

The shortlists for the crowd-funded 2012 Queensland Literary Award were announced recently. Congratulations to all the writers who made the lists, including the following. A number of the books have been reviewed by AWW challenge participants (links to their reviews appear with their names below). 

For a full list of shortlisted books, including children's books, see here.

Fiction

• Anna Funder, All That I Am: 1girl2manybooks, Jon Page, Janine Rizzetti, Kevin Rennie, Marg Bates, Chris Wolak
• Kate Grenville, Sarah Thornhill: MD Brady
  

Young Adult Book Award

• Kirsty Eagar, Night Beach: Speculatef, Bookdout, VeganYANerds, 1girl2manybooks, Australian Bookshelf
• Judith Clarke, Three Summers:* 
• Margo Lanagan, Sea Hearts (also published as The Brides of Rollrock Island): Lizabelle, Literary Minded, Krissing Kneen, Astrid, Sue Luus, Dark Matter Fanzine, Coleen Kwan, Mark Webb, Jason Nahrung, 
• Vikki Wakefield, All I Ever Wanted: Lia Weston

Australian Short Story collection - Steele Rudd Award

• Marion Halligan, Shooting the Fox*
• Janette Turner Hospital, Forecast: Turbulence: Rebecca Howden, Janine Rizzetti

Non-fiction

• Robin de Crespigny, The People Smuggler:* 
• Jane Gleeson-White, Double Entry: Yvone Perkins
• Alice Pung, Her Father’s Daughter: James Tierney

Science Book Award

• Robyn Arianrhod, Seduced by Logic*

History Book Award

• Robyn Arianrhod, Seduced by Logic*
• Nicole Moore, The Censor’s Library*

Judith Wright Calanthe Poetry Award

• Rhyll McMaster, Late Night Shopping*

(* denotes books yet to be reviewed)


Are you planning to review any of the above books that haven't yet been reviewed? 

NB: This post will be cross-posted to the new, draft AWW site on WordPress.