The NSW Government has a long tradition of celebrating and connecting the public with art and literature. The NSW Premier’s Literary Awards are an opportunity to highlight the importance of literacy and literature, whilst enjoying and learning from the work of our writers in NSW and Australia. Like other literary awards, this award in highlighting the spectacular Australian Literature Australian writers produce, highlights and honours the achievements of Australia’s writers, and their artistic contributions to society, but also to highlight our literary achievements to the world. The State Library administers the awards.
The NSW Premier’s Literary Awards have more categories than the Victorian awards. These categories are:
Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
2017 Winner: The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose
2017 Shortlist: Vancouver #3 in the series Wisdom Tree by Nick Earls
Their Brilliant Careers: The Fantastic Lives of Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers by Ryan O’Neill
Where the Light Falls by Gretchen Shirm
After the Carnage by Tara June Winch
The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood.
UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing
2017 Winner: Letter to Pessoa by Michelle Cahil
2017 Shortlist:
The Memory Artist by Katherine Brabon
Dodge Rose by Jack Cox
Our Magic Hour by Jennifer Down
Portable Curiosities by Julie Koh
The Bonobo’s Dream by Rose Mulready
Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction
2017 Winner: Our Man Elsewhere: In Search of Alan Moorehead by Thornton McCamish
2017 Shortlist: Everywhere I Look by Helen Garner
Talking to My Country by Stan Grant
The Art of Time Travel: Historians and Their Craft by Tom Griffiths
Avalanche by Julia Leigh
Prince of Darkness: The Untold Story of Jeremiah G. Hamilton, Wall Street’s First Black Millionaire by Shane White
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
2017 Winner: Ghostspeaking by Peter Boyle
2017 Shortlist: Burnt Umber by Paul Hetherington
Breaking the Days by Jill Jones
Fragments by Antigone Kefala
Firebreaks: Poems by John Kinsella
Comfort Food by Ellen van Neerven
Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature
2017 Winner: One Thousand Hills by James Roy and Noël Zihabamwe
2017 Shortlist: Elegy by Jane Abbott
The Ghost by the Billabong by Jackie French
The Sidekicks by Will Kostakis
The Boundless Sublime by Lili Wilkinson
One Would Think the Deep by Claire Zorn
Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature
2017 Winner: Iris and the Tiger by Leanne Hall
2017 Shortlist: Magrit by Lee Battersby and Amy Daoud
Something Wonderful by Raewyn Caisley and Karen Blair
Desert Lake Pamela Freeman and Liz Anelli
Figgy and the President by Tamsin Janu
Welcome to Country by Aunty Joy Murphy and Lisa Kennedy
Nick Enright Prize For Playwriting
2017 Winner: The Drover’s Wife by Leah Purcell
2017 Shortlist: The Hanging by Angela Betzein
You, Me and the Space Between by Finegan Kruckemeyer
Ladies Day by Alana Valentine
Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting
2017 Winner: The Code – Series 2, Episode 4 by Shelley Birse
2017 Shortlist: Down Under by Abe Forsythe
Sucker by Lawrence Leung and Ben Chessel
The Kettering Incident episode 1 by Victoria Madden
Afghanistan: Inside Australia’s War by Victoria Midwinter Pitt
Cleverman Episode 5 “Terra Nullius” by Michael Miller
Multicultural NSW Award
2017 Winner: The Hate Race by Maxine Beneba Clarke
2017 Shortlist: Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru by Madeline Gleeson
Not Quite Australian: How Temporary Migration is Changing the Nation by Peter Mares
Of Ashes and Rivers that Run to the Sea by Marie Munkara
Promising Azra Helen Thurloe – on my To Be Read pile.
The Fighter: A True Story by Arnold Zable
NSW Premier’s Translation Prize
2017 Winner: Royall Tyler
2017 Shortlist: J.M.Q Davies
Penny Hueston
Jennifer Lindsay
Multicultural NSW Early Career Translation Prize
2017 Winner: Jan Owen
2017 Shortlist: Christopher Williams
Indigenous Writer’s Prize – Biennial Prize Next Awarded in 2018
Last awarded in 2016.
2016 Winners: Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe and Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven
2016 Shortlist: Ghost River by Tony Birch
Inside My Mother by Ali Cobby Eckermann
Dirty Words by Natalie Harkin
Not Just Black and White by Lesley Williams and Tammy Williams
Other Awards:
2017 Winner: The Drover’s Wife by Leah Purcell
2017 Winner: Vancouver #3 in the series Wisdom Tree by Nick Earls
The Special Award was last awarded to Rosie Scott AM in 2016.
Across these twelve categories and the three additional ones, there is a diverse range of authors and stories, that tell of personal experiences, imagined worlds and that draw on history and the world the authors have lived that led them to write these books. Each prize I have looked at so far has shown a different degree of diversity, with this one having a broader range, if only because it has more categories than the others I have looked at. Last year’s winners and nominees are in good company with past winners Peter Carey, David Malouf AO, Elizabeth Jolley, Thomas Keneally AO and Helen Garner.
Each prize has a different amount of money, and further details can be found in the provided links. In 2018, the total prize money, including sponsored awards is up to $305 000, and to be nominated for any of these awards, the writer and illustrator must be living Australian citizens or hold permanent resident status.
Taken from the website:
The NSW Premier’s Literary Awards are presented by the NSW Government and administered by the State Library in association with Create NSW. We are pleased to acknowledge the support of Multicultural NSW and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).
The 2018 winners will be announced on 30 April 2018.The short-list will be announced in March.
Purchase any of the above books here:
The Book Muse 
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