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WA Premier’s Book Awards shortlist announced

Wednesday, 25 June 2025   Books+Publishing
@booksandpublishing

The shortlists for the 2025 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards have been announced.

This year, the awards have a total prize pool of $120,000 and four new categories.

The new categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young adult will ‘showcase the work of more Western Australian authors and publishers’, and Book of the Year ($15,000) will be a ‘winner of winners’ chosen from the winning category titles. 

The shortlisted books in each category are:

Emerging Writer ($15,000)

  • Down the Rabbit Hole (Shaeden Berry, Echo)
  • Fragile Creatures: A Memoir (Khin Myint, Black Inc.)
  • Matia (Emily Tsokos Purtill, UWAP)
  • The Moment of the Essay: Australian Letters and the Personal Essay (Daniel Juckes, UWAP)
  • The Skeleton House (Katherine Allum, Fremantle)

Fiction Book of the Year ($15,000)

  • Cutler (David Whish-Wilson, Fremantle)
  • Death Holds the Key (Alexander Thorpe, Fremantle)
  • A Home in Her (Sarah Winifred Searle, Gestalt)
  • Once (Annie Raser-Rowland, Gratton Street)
  • Shadows of Winter Robins (Louise Wolhuter, Ultimo)

Nonfiction Book of the Year ($15,000)

  • Anatomy of a Secret (Gerard McCann, Fremantle)
  • How to Avoid a Happy Life (Julia Lawrinson, Fremantle)
  • In Hot Water: Inside the battle to save the Great Barrier Reef (Paul Hardisty, Affirm)
  • Jilya (Tracy Westerman, UQP)
  • Some People Want to Shoot Me (Wayne Bergmann & Madelaine Dickie, Fremantle)

Poetry Book of the Year ($15,000)

  • G-d, Sleep, and Chaos (Alan Fyfe, Gazebo)
  • Personal Logistics (Chris Palazzolo, Fremantle)
  • Tossed Up by the Beak of a Cormorant (Nandi Chinna and Anne Poelina, Fremantle)

Children’s Book of the Year ($15,000)

  • The Apprentice Witnesser (Bren MacDibble, A&U Children’s)
  • Courage be my Friend (Jenny Davis, Fremantle)
  • Goodnight, Joeys (Renée Treml, Puffin)
  • A Leaf Called Greaf (Kelly Canby, Fremantle)
  • When the World Was Soft (Juluwarlu Group, illus by Juluwarlu Art Group & Alex Mankiewicz, A&U Children’s)

Young Adult Book of the Year ($15,000)

  • Dreamwalker #1 (Scott Wilson & Molly Hunt, illus by Chris Wood, Gestalt)
  • Liar’s Test (Ambelin Kwaymullina, Text)
  • My Family and Other Suspects (Kate Emery, A&U Children’s)
  • Trackers (Donna Hughes, Currency Press)
  • A Wreck of Seabirds (Karleah Olson, Fremantle)

Daisy Utemorrah Award for Unpublished Indigenous Junior and Young Adult Writing ($15,000)

  • ‘Jax Paperweight and the Neon Starway’ by Beau Windon
  • ‘Noble Intentions’ by Krista Dunstan
  • ‘The Takeback Heist’ by Jannali Jones.

The winners of the awards, including Book of the Year, will be announced at a ceremony held at the State Library in late August.

More information about the awards and the nominees is available on the State Library of Western Australia website.

 

Category: Awards Local news