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Queensland Literary Awards 2012 shortlists announced

The titles shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards have been announced.

The shortlisted titles in each category are:

Fiction book award

  • The Chemistry of Tears (Peter Carey, Penguin)
  • All That I Am (Anna Funder, Penguin)
  • Sarah Thornhill (Kate Grenville, Text)
  • Autumn Laing (Alex Miller, A&U)
  • Cold Light (Frank Moorhouse, Random House)

 

Science writer award

  • Seduced by Logic (Robyn Arianrhod, UQP)
  • Gone Viral (Frank Bowden, UNSW Press)
  • Sex, Genes & Rock ‘n’ Roll (Rob Brooks, UNSW Press)
  • Australia: The Time Traveller’s Guide (Richard Smith, ABC Books)

 

Nonfiction book award

  • The People Smuggler (Robin De Crespigny, Penguin)
  • Double Entry (Jane Gleeson-White, A&U)
  • Riding the Trains in Japan (Patrick Holland, Transit Lounge)
  • Worse Things Happen at Sea (William McInnes & Sarah Watt, Hachette)
  • Her Father’s Daughter (Alice Pung, Black Inc.)

 

Emerging Queensland author – manuscript award

  • Scratches on the Surface (Aaron Smibert)
  • Home Mechanics (Luke Thomas)
  • Island of the Unexpected (Catherine Titasey)
  • Hidden Objects (Ariella Van Luyn)

 

David Unaipon Award for an unpublished Indigenous writer

  • Story (Siv Parker)
  • Hard (Ellen van Neerven-Currie)
  • My Journey that May Never End (Dorothy Williams-Kemp)

 

The Harry Williams Award for a literary or media work advancing public debate

  • Too Much Luck: The Mining Boom and Australia’s Future (Paul Cleary, Black Inc.)
  • The Australian Moment: How We Were Made for These Times (George Megalogenis, Penguin)
  • There Goes the Neighbourhood (Michael Weley, UNSW Press)

 

Judith Wright Calanthe Award – poetry collection

  • The Welfare of My Enemy (Anthony Lawrence, Puncher & Wattman)
  • Outside (David McCooey, Salt Publishing)
  • Late Night Shopping (Rhyll McMaster, Brandl & Schlesinger)
  • Crimson Crop (Peter Rose, UWA Publishing)
  • The Yellow Gum’s Conversion (Simon West, Puncher & Wattman)

 

History book award

  • Seduced by Logic (Robyn Arianrhod, UQP)
  • 1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia (James Boyce, Black Inc.)
  • The Biggest Estate on Earth (Bill Gammage, A&U)
  • The Censor’s Library (Nicole Moore, UQP)

 

Children’s book award

  • The Horses Didn’t Come Home (Pamela Rushby, HarperCollins)
  • Brotherband 1: The Outcasts (John Flanagan, Random House)
  • Look a Book! (Libby Gleeson & Freya Blackwood, Little Hare)
  • Ten Blue Wrens (Elizabeth Honey, A&U)
  • Kumiko and the Shadow Catchers (Briony Stewart, UQP)

 

Young adult book award

  • Night Beach (Kirsty Eagar, Penguin)
  • The Ink Bridge (Neil Grant, A&U)
  • Three Summers (Judith Clarke, A&U)
  • Sea Hearts (Margo Lanagan, A&U)
  • All I Ever Wanted (Vikki Wakefield, Text)

 

The Steele Rudd Award for an Australian short story collection

  • Silence (Rodney Hall, Murdoch Books)
  • Shooting the Fox (Marion Halligan, A&U)
  • In the Shade of the Shady Tree (John Kinsella, Swallow Press, Ohio University Press)
  • The Weight of a Human Heart (Ryan O’Neill, Black Inc.)
  • Forecast: Turbulence (Janette Turner Hospital, HarperCollins)

 

Television script award

  • The Straits: ‘Yawor – My Lovely’, episode 3 (Blake Ayshford, Matchbox Pictures)
  • The Slap: ‘Harry’, episode 3 (Brendan Cowell, Matchbox Pictures)
  • Strange Calls: ‘Phantom’, episode 3 (Anthony Mullins, Hoodlum Active)
  • Mabo (Sue Smith, Blackfella Films)
  • Dance Academy: ‘The Prix de Fonteyn’, episode 24 (Liz Doran, Werner Films)

 

Drama script (stage) award

  • War Crimes (Angela Betzien)
  • Bloodland (Wayne Blair)
  • Taxi (Patricia Cornelius)
  • Baby Teeth (Rita Kalnejais)
  • A Golem Story (Lally Katz) 

 

Film script award

  • Dead Europe (Louise Fox, See-Saw Films)
  • Being Venice (Miro Bilbra, Dragon Net Films)
  • Rarer Monsters (Shane Armstrong & S P Krauss)
  • Save Your Legs (Brendan Cowell, Robyn Kershaw Productions).

 

This year’s shortlisted titles were chosen from more than 600 entries.

The Queensland Literary Awards were established on 4 April following the decision by Queensland premier Campbell Newman to discontinue the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards.

Announcing the shortlist at Brisbane’s Avid Reader bookshop, Stuart Glover said the awards ‘recognise the value of literature to the Queensland community’.

‘The telling and reading of local and national stories is central to our cultural life and to a healthy democracy. These awards support new Queensland writers, new Indigenous writers, and they ensure that Queensland is part of the national conversation about Australian values and the Australian experience,’ said Glover.

The titles shortlisted for an additional people’s choice award category, created this year, have previously been announced. As previously reported by Bookseller+Publisher, the titles shortlisted for the inaugural Courier-Mail People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year are:

Fiction

  • Closer to Stone (Simon Cleary, UQP)
  • The Fix (Nick Earls, Vintage)
  • The Ottoman Motel (Christopher Currie, Text)

 
Nonfiction

  • Riding the Trains in Japan (Patrick Holland, Transit Lounge)
  • The Promise of Iceland (Kari Gislason, UQP)
  • Worse Things Happen at Sea (William McInnes & Sarah Watts, Hachette).

 

The winners of the 2012 Queensland Literary Awards will be announced on 4 September. See www.queenslandliteraryawards.com for further details.

 

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Category: Local news