The Winner of The Australian/Vogel’s Award has been announced…

On Friday the 16^th of June, Allen and Unwin announced the 2023 winner of their annual unpublished manuscript prize for a writer under the age of thirty-five, The Australian/Vogel’s Award for Young Writers. This year it was won by Anna McGahan, niece of Andrew McGahan who also won the prize many years ago as well. Anna’s book, Immaculate, takes out the prize this year and it will be published on the 20^th of June 2023.  About the book: All Frances wants is a cure for her daughter, but that would take a miracle, and miracles aren’t something Frances believes in anymore.Newly divorced from her pastor ex-husband and excommunicated from the church community she once worked within, she wrestles alone with the prognosis of her terminally ill child. Any suggestion of ‘divine intervention’ is salt in the wound of her grief. So when Frances is forced to take in a homeless and pregnant teenage girl who claims to have had an immaculate conception, she’s deeply challenged.But sixteen-year-old Mary is not who she seems, and soon opens the door to perspectives that profoundly shift Frances’s sense of reality, triggering a chain of astonishing events. It seems that where there is the greatest suffering lies an unexpected magic. Frances begins to hold hope for her family’s future, but the miracle prayed for is not always the one received.Immaculate is a provocative and tender exploration of loss, identity and healing, and the secret worlds we hide within in order to survive.   The Australian/Vogel’s Award for Young Writers is one of the richest and most prestigious literary awards in Australia. As well as publication, the winner also receives $20,000.