the-stella-prize-homeWow – this might be the strongest Stella Prize field I’ve ever seen. Congratulations to all.

This year’s longlisted titles are:

  • Victoria: The Queen (Julia Baird, HarperCollins)
  • Between a Wolf and a Dog (Georgia Blain, Scribe)
  • The Hate Race (Maxine Beneba Clarke, Hachette)
  • Poum and Alexandre (Catherine de Saint Phalle, Transit Lounge)
  • Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru (Madeline Gleeson, NewSouth)
  • Avalanche (Julia Leigh, Hamish Hamilton)
  • An Isolated Incident (Emily Maguire, Picador)
  • The High Places (Fiona McFarlane, Hamish Hamilton)
  • Wasted: A Story of Alcohol, Grief and a Death in Brisbane (Elspeth Muir, Text)
  • The Museum of Modern Love (Heather Rose, A&U)
  • Dying: A Memoir (Cory Taylor, Text)
  • The Media and the Massacre (Sonya Voumard, Transit Lounge).

The shortlist will be announced on 8 March and the winner at a ceremony in Melbourne on 18 April.

As a writer of non-fiction, I can’t help but be pleased to see the shortlist comprises seven works of nonfiction (and four novels and one short-story collection). Great mix of large and small publishers too – including two from Text – huzzah!

This year’s prize is judged by author and academic Brenda Walker; author and literary critic Delia Falconer; bookseller Diana Johnston; editor and chair of First Nations Australia Writers’ Network Sandra Phillips; and author and screenwriter Benjamin Law.

The Stella Prize is presented for the best work of fiction or nonfiction by an Australian women published in the previous calendar year. The prize is named after Miles Franklin, whose first name was Stella, and was inspired by the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.