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Tonner wins Finch Memoir Prize for ‘Cold Vein’

Anne Tonner has won the 2017 Finch Memoir Prize for her manuscript ‘Cold Vein’, an account of her daughter’s battle with anorexia.

Judge Maggie Mackellar said Tonner’s memoir had a ‘ferocity and velocity’ that made it ‘totally compelling’. ‘I found myself reading with my breath held as the narrator reported on the disintegration of her family’s life as her daughter disappeared figuratively and literally under the savages of anorexia,’ said Mackellar. ‘This is an important memoir.’

Tonner’s manuscript was chosen from a shortlist of four, which also included:

  • Freya Latona for ‘Deep Down Things’
  • Kate Mathieson for ‘Ways to Come Home’
  • Julie Weatherburn for ‘Swimming across Myself’.

Tonner wins $5000 and her memoir will be published by Finch Publishing in May.

The judging panel also included Good Reading editor Rowena Morcom and author Suzanne Faulkner.

For more information on the prize, click here.

 

Category: Local news