Premier's Book Awards shortlist announced

Shortlists for the 2019 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards have been announced. The Awards are intended to support, develop and recognise excellence in writing, and the $60,000 Western Australian Writer's Fellowship is one of the most valuable awards in Australian arts. The winners of the 2019 Premier's Book Awards will be announced in August 2020 at the State Library of Western Australia. During the event, a new inductee will be welcomed into the WA Writers Hall of Fame. The Daisy Utemorrah Award for Unpublished Indigenous Junior and Young Adult Fiction is open to Indigenous writers from across Australia. 

​For information about the awards, go to the State Library of Western Australia's website at http://www.slwa.wa.gov.au

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The shortlists:


The Premier's Prize for an Emerging Writer ($15,000)

• Fabulous Lives by Bindy Pritchard (Margaret River Press)
• Invisible Boys by Holden Sheppard (Fremantle Press)
• Rapture's Roadway by Virginia Jealous (Ventura Press)
• The Wooleen Way by David Pollock (Scribe Publications)
• Wombat, Mudlark and Other Stories by Helen Milroy (Fremantle Press)

The Premier's Prize for Writing for Children ($15,000)

• Alex and the Alpacas Save the World by Kathryn Lefroy (Fremantle Press)
• Catch a Falling Star by Meg McKinlay (Walker Books Australia)
• Let me Sleep, Sheep! by Meg McKinlay, illustrated by Leila Rudge (Walker Books Australia)
• The Gift by Michael Speechley (Penguin Random House Australia)
• Violet and Nothing by Fiona Burrows (Fremantle Press)

The Western Australian Writer's Fellowship ($60,000)

• Amanda Curtin
• Lucy Dougan 
• Rafeif Ismail 
• Caitlin Maling 
• Carl Merrison 

The Daisy Utemorrah Award for Unpublished Indigenous Junior and Young Adult Fiction ($15,000 and a publishing contract with Magabala Books)

• Our Matriarchs by Teela May Reid
• 18 Comments by Ellen van Neerven
• Swell by Elizabeth Stuart
• Yenda by Jannali Jones; and
• Noble Intentions by Krista Dunstan