2008 Victorian Premier's Literary Award winners announced

The winners of the 2008 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were announced last night.

The Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction
The Spare Room by Helen Garner

The Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-fiction
The Ferocious Summer: Palmer's Penguins and the Warming of Antarctica by Meredith Hooper

The CJ Dennis Prize for Poetry
Press Release by Lisa Gorton

The Louis Esson Prize for Drama
"When the Rain Stops Falling" by Andrew Bovell

The Prize for Young Adult Fiction
Tomorrow All Will Be Beautiful by Brigid Lowry

The Prize for a First Book of History
The Lamb Enters the Dreaming: Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World by Robert Kenny

The Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate
"Trapped in the Aboriginal Reality Show" by Marcia Langton (Griffith Review)

The Prize for Indigenous Writing
Anonymous Premonition by Yvette Holt

The Prize for the Best Music Theatre Script
"The Wild Blue" by Anthony Crowley (St. Martins Theatre)

The Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer
Going Finish by Mandy Maroney

The Grollo Ruzzene Foundation Prize for Writing about Italians in Australia
Head Over Heel by Chris Harrison

The John Curtin Prize for Journalism
"Out of Control: The Tragedy of Tasmania's Forests" by Richard Flanagan (The Monthly)

Click here for more info about the awards (including the judges' reports)

Click here to go to the Library catalogue

Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2008

The prestigious Victorian Premier's Literary Awards will be announced at a dinner at Zinc in Federation Square on Monday 1 September. The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards were established in 1985 by John Cain, the Premier of Victoria at that time, to mark the centenary of the births of Vance and Nettie Palmer. John Cain is now President of the Library Board of Victoria.

These awards have grown greatly since the first few award categories in 1985. The categories for the 2008 awards are as follows:

2008 Awards

The Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction
The Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-fiction
The Prize for Young Adult Fiction
The Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer
The CJ Dennis Prize for Poetry
The Louis Esson Prize for Drama
The Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate
The Prize for a First Book of History
The Prize for Indigenous Writing
The John Curtin Prize for Journalism
The Prize for Best Music Theatre Script
The Grollo Ruzzene Foundation Prize for Writing about Italians in Australia

To see all the titles which are shortlisted for 2008, read here.