About

Melbourne Prize
for Literature 2012


The Melbourne Prize for Literature 2012 and Best Writing Award 2012 have closed for entries.

The finalist exhibition was held at Federation Square between 5 and 19 November 2012.

Click here for the 2012 finalist catalogue.
The Melbourne Prize for Literature 2012 is part of the annual Melbourne Prize cycle and is run by the Melbourne Prize Trust – click here for more information on the Melbourne Prize Trust.



The Melbourne Prize Trust would like to thank the 2012 partners and patrons and the literary sector and the many organisations, publications and websites for their support in 2012.

Click here for the 2012 Partners
and Patrons.

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Announcements

2012 Announcements


The winner of the Melbourne Prize for Literature 2012, Best Writing Award 2012, Civic Choice Award 2012 and The University of Melbourne Residency are listed below along with the 2012 finalists.

Melbourne Prize 
for Literature 2012


Alison Lester
Robert Manne
Alex Miller – Winner
Joanna Murray-Smith
Peter Temple

Best Writing Award 2012


Tony Birch, Blood – Winner Civic Choice Award 2012
Anna Goldsworthy, Piano Lessons
Sonya Hartnett,
The Children of the King
Paul Kelly, How to Make Gravy
Wayne Macauley, The Cook
David McCooey, Outside
Favel Parrett, Past the Shallows
Craig Sherborne,
The Amateur Science of Love – Winner and Residency
Carrie Tiffany, Mateship with Birds
Ouyang Yu, The English Class

Click here for the 2012 catalogue.

 

For more information about these authors and titles, visit Readings.

Civic Choice Award 2012


Voting for the $5,000 Civic Choice Award 2012 is closed. The winner of this award is in the list of finalists to the left.

The Civic Choice Award 2012 is supported by Readings and Hardie Grant Books.

 

Sofitel Melbourne


Melbourne’s ‘hotel for the arts’ – Sofitel Melbourne on Collins – has generously donated an accommodation package for an overnight stay in a classic King room, including a buffet breakfast for two and valet parking.

The accommodation package is presented to a voter who will be randomly selected from votes cast for a finalist to win the Civic Choice Award 2012.

One of Australia’s most luxurious hotels, Sofitel Melbourne on Collins is located at the ‘Paris’ end of Collins Street in the heart of the city’s premier dinning, shopping and entertainment precincts, offering spectacular views over the city from every room.


Finalist Biographies

Melbourne Prize
for Literature 2012
$60,000


For a Victorian author whose body of published or produced work has made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature and to cultural and intellectual life. Open to all genres.

Alison Lester

Alison Lester is one of Australia’s bestselling creators of children’s books, with over 30 titles to her name. A qualified art teacher, Alison lives on a farm in the Victorian countryside and spends part of each year travelling to schools in remote and Indigenous areas around Australia, using her books to help children and adults write and draw about their own lives.

Robert Manne

A long-time Melbourne resident, Robert Manne has written or edited twenty books and book-length essays, as well as a large number of book chapters, scores of journal and magazine articles and hundreds of newspaper articles. He has also been involved in public commentary since the late 1980s, as a regular newspaper columnist and frequent contributor to ABC television and radio. In 2005 he was voted Australia’s leading public intellectual in polls published in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian.

Alex Miller (Winner Melbourne Prize for Literature 2012)

A resident of regional Victoria, Alex Miller’s novels frequently portray aspects of Melbourne, its people and culture. In 2005 he was awarded the Commonwealth Centenary Medal for contributions to literature and culture and in 2011 Miller was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, in recognition of his contribution to literary, educational and cultural body of work.

Joanna Murray-Smith

A resident of Melbourne’s northern suburbs, Joanna Murray-Smith has written sixteen full-length plays which have been performed throughout the country and around the world and translated into several languages. Joanna is currently writing commissions for the Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, the Geffen Playhouse and Opera Australia.

Peter Temple

Born in South Africa, Peter moved to Sydney in 1980 as a journalist before moving to Melbourne to edit Australian Society magazine. The author of nine novels, four of which feature the protagonist Jack Irish, Peter has been internationally awarded as a crime writer, with novels published in twenty countries.

Best Writing Award 2012
$30,000 / plus $2,500 Qantas international air travel


For a piece of published or produced work of outstanding clarity, originality and creativity by a Victorian writer. Open to all genres.

Tony Birch, Blood (Winner Civic Choice Award 2012)

University of Queensland Press, 2011 (fiction)
Conceived while sitting at his kitchen table in Brunswick, Tony Birch’s Blood is the story of two siblings who have their faith and love for each other tested to the limits in circumstances that few could emotionally, and perhaps physically, survive. Set in Melbourne and Victoria’s western district, the siblings embark on an epic trek in search of survival and sanctuary. Resident of Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

Anna Goldsworthy,
Piano Lessons

Black Inc., 2011 (memoir)
A professional pianist who has toured nationally and internationally, Goldsworthy was inspired by her childhood protégé and piano teacher, Eleonora Sivan, formerly a lecturer at the Leningrad Conservatorium of Music. The memoir captures the hopes and uncertainties of youth, the fear and exhilaration of performing and the complex bonds between teacher and student. Melbourne resident.

Sonya Hartnett,
The Children of the King

Penguin Australia, 2012
(younger readers)
The third of a theme-connected trilogy written for younger readers, The Children of the King, tells the story of slblings, Cecily, aged 12, and Jeremy, 14, who are sent with their mother to the countryside on the eve of the Blitz. The Blitz is the background to a mystery and ghost story told around the ruins of a nearby castle, written from the perspective of the children’s view of the world. Resident of Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

Paul Kelly, How to Make Gravy

Penguin Group Australia, 2010
(memoir)
From liner notes to a boxed set of CDs, Paul’s inspiration and memories of each song slowly unfolded into a memoir about the things and people he loved – songs, books, family friends and fellow musicians, as well as poets and writers he’d never met who’d made an indelible mark. Taking the lyrics of his songs as starting points, How to Make Gravy, tells stories of Kelly’s life, the highs and lows of performing and paint a portrait of the creative mind. Melbourne resident.

Residency

 

A residency with the School of Culture & Communication at The University of Melbourne will be awarded to the recipient of either the Melbourne Prize for Literature 2012 or Best Writing Award 2012, at the discretion of the judges.

Wayne Macauley, The Cook

Text Publishing Company, 2011
(fiction)
Written from the point of view of a naive young man from a decaying factory suburb who is selected for cooking school, The Cook focuses on his obsession to become as rich and famous as the Head Chef who runs it. Inner Melbourne resident.

David McCooey, Outside

Salt Publishing, 2011 (poetry)
A collection of poems inspired by the tensions in some of our most basic categories of life: inside and outside; night and day, the themes of daily, domestic existence are contrasted with the darker elements of life. Resident of regional Victoria.

Favel Parrett, Past the Shallows

Hachette Australia, 2011 (fiction)
Inspired by the isolation and wilderness Tasmania’s south coast, Parrett writes about a bond between two brothers, united by their fear of their father’s unpredictable moods and love of the Southern Ocean. Parrett believes that her passion for surfing gave her the language to write the book. Inner Melbourne resident.

Craig Sherborne, The Amateur Science of Love (Winner Best Writing Award 2012)

Text Publishing Company, 2011 (fiction)
With self-confessed parallels to his own personal life, Craig Sherborne’s novel focuses on the rituals and moral misbalancing of two lovers faced with sickness as a bond and the eventual dissembler of their affections, compounded by an age gap. Inner Melbourne resident.
(Winner The University of Melbourne Residency)

Carrie Tiffany, Mateship with Birds

Pan Macmillan Australia, 2012
(fiction)
Set on a dairy farm on the Gunbower Creek at Cohuna, the novel documents the lives of a single mother, Betty, her two children Michael and Little Hazel, and the bachelor dairyman on the next door farm. Mateship with Birds also outlines the similarities between the lives, particularly the sex lives, of people and animals, in life on the land. Resident of Melbourne’s north eastern suburbs.

Ouyang Yu, The English Class

Transit Lounge Publishing, 2010
(fiction)
Inspired partly by his own experience as a lorry driver in a factory on the Yangtze and partly by the experience of his grandfather, who fought the Japanese on the Burma Road in the 1940s, the novel tells a story in a parallel narrative that deconstructs the mechanisms of colonialism against an increasingly vibrant Chinese economy of today. Resident of Melbourne’s west.
Past Winners


Gerald Murnane

Melbourne Prize
for Literature 2009




Helen Garner

Melbourne Prize
for Literature 2006

Images courtesy of Melbourne Prize Trust


Nam Le

Best Writing Award 2009
The Boat (Penguin, 2008)




Christos Tsiolkas

Best Writing Award 2006
Dead Europe (Random House, 2005)
Photo by Monica Ali


Amra Pajalic

Civic Choice Award 2009
The Good Daughter (Text, 2009)




Henry von Doussa

Civic Choice Award 2006
The Park Bench
(Thompson Walker, 2005)
Exhibition Information


2012 Finalist Exhibition

Federation Square
Image courtesy of Leisa Hunt Photography
The public exhibition of the finalists in the Melbourne Prize for Literature 2012 and the Best Writing Award 2012 at Federation Square was held between 5 and 19 November 2012.

Click here for the 2012 catalogue.
Voting for the $5,000 Civic Choice Award 2012 is now closed. Click here to see the 2012 finalists and winners.

Click here for the 2012 Partners and Patrons.
Prize Details

Melbourne Prize
for Literature 2012
$60,000


The Melbourne Prize for Literature 2012 is for a Victorian author whose body of published or produced work has made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature and to cultural and intellectual life.

The author’s work can include all genres and forms, for example, fiction, non-fiction, essays, plays, screenplays and poetry. There is no age limit for this prize.

The Prize is supported by The Vera Moore Foundation, The Tallis Foundation and the Melbourne Prize Trust.

Best Writing Award 2012
$30,000



The Best Writing Award 2012 is for a piece of published or produced work of outstanding clarity, originality and creativity by a Victorian writer. The work can be any genre or form for example, fiction, non-fiction, essays, plays, screenplays and poetry. There is no age limit for this award.

The Best Writing Award 2012 is supported by its sole patron, The Robert Salzer Foundation.

The recipient of this award will also receive Qantas international air travel to the value of $2,500 (including GST).

Residency — The University of Melbourne
A residency at the School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne will be awarded, at the discretion of the judges, to either the recipient of the Melbourne Prize for Literature 2012 or the Best Writing Award 2012.

Civic Choice Award 2012
$5,000



A public exhibition of the finalists in the Melbourne Prize for Literature 2012 and the Best Writing Award 2012 will be held at Federation Square between 5 and 19 November 2012.

This award will be given to the finalist with the highest number of public votes. Votes can be made using the online voting form, available at www.melbourneprize.org, from the announcement of finalists on 5 September to the close of the Federation Square exhibition on 19 November.

A voting form will also be available in the free catalogue, available during the exhibition. The announcement of the winner of the Civic Choice Award 2012 will be made on 23 November 2012 at www.melbourneprize.org

The Civic Choice Award 2012 is supported by Readings and Hardie Grant Books.

Entries are now closed –
Click here to view an example of this year’s entry form.


The Judges


Christos Tsiolkas

Writer
Photo by Monica Ali




Mark Rubbo OAM

Managing Director
Readings Books Music & Film


Professor Brian Matthews FAHA

Writer and Emeritus Professor
 




Michael Williams

Director
The Wheeler Centre
Photo by Jon Tjhia


Hannie Rayson

Playwright
Partners & Patrons
Contact
Melbourne Prize Trust
234 St Kilda Road
Southbank VIC 3006

Telephone (03) 9696 4410
enquire[a]melbourneprizetrust.org
www.melbourneprizetrust.org