Changes to NSW Premier’s Literary and History Awards announced

5 April 2012 Books+Publishing

The New South Wales Government has announced that this year’s NSW Premier’s Literary and History Awards will be presented at the State Library of NSW in November, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

The NSW Premier’s Literary Awards have previously been presented during the Sydney Writers Festival in May each year, while the NSW Premier’s History Awards were previously presented during History Week in September. The change also means that the State Library will take over the management of the awards.

The decision to change the management and timing of the awards follows a review of the awards, announced by Arts NSW at the end of 2011. The review was conducted by Gerard Henderson (chair), Peter Coleman, Shelley Gare, Ida Lichter and Michael Sexton, and was tasked with considering ‘ways to maintain and enhance the prestige and authority of the awards’ as well as looking at ‘the governance, selection criteria and judging process’.

The review meant that this year’s awards were delayed. Next year, the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards will return to the Sydney Writers Festival in May and the NSW Premier’s History Awards will return to History Week in September.

NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell said today that ‘the reinvigoration of the awards is a clear demonstration of the importance that my government places on re-establishing Sydney and NSW as the cultural capital of Australia’.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that today’s announcement was brought forward to counter speculation about the future of the awards following this week’s decision by the Queensland Government to discontinue the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards.

Category: Local news