Rough Diamonds: The Award for an Unpublished Manuscript
In its 15-year history, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript has launched some big names in Australian writing, including Graeme Simsion (The Rosie Project), Maxine Beneba Clarke (Foreign Soil) and more.
The award is a big leg-up for unpublished authors. Previous winners have gone on to write bestselling books across a range of forms and genres and to win other major Australian literary awards, too.
At the Wheeler Centre in September, we’ll check in with some recent past winners: Jane Harper (2015 winner for The Dry), Melanie Cheng (2016 winner for Australia Day), and Christian White (2017 winner for The Nowhere Child). Hosted by Toni Jordan, the trio will discuss their journeys – from laptop-clutching hopefuls to published debut authors, and beyond.
Hill of Content will be our bookseller for this event.
Featuring
Featuring
Toni Jordan is the author of six novels including the international best-seller Addition, Nine Days, which was awarded Best Fiction at the 2012 Indie Awards, and Our Tiny, Useless Hearts (2016), which was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and for the Voss Literary Award. Toni ho... Read more
Christian White is an Australian author and screenwriter whose projects include feature film Relic. The Nowhere Child is his first book and one of Australia’s bestselling debut novels ever. An early draft of this novel won the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript... Read more
Melanie Cheng is a writer and general practitioner from Melbourne. She is the author of Australia Day, which won the 2018 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction, and Room for a Stranger, which was longlisted for the 2020 Miles Franklin Award. Her non-fiction has been published in the G... Read more
Jane Harper is the internationally bestselling author of the The Dry, Force of Nature, The Lost Man and The Survivors. Her books are published in forty territories worldwide, and The Dry has been adapted into a major motion picture starring Eric Bana. Jane has won numerous top awards including the A... Read more
Watch, Listen, Read
Listen
Jane Harrison: The Visitors
Listen
Richard Ford in Conversation
Read
Blak & Bright First Nations Literary Festival returns in 2024
Listen
Jane Smiley in Conversation
Watch
Pia Miranda: Finding My Bella Vita
Read