Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2014
Welcome to the 2014 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. Now is your chance to explore the Premier’s 21 - and to home in on the best of the best in Australian writing.
The Premier’s 21 is your ready-made summer reading list, comprising the shortlisted titles across all five categories in contention for the big prize. That’s eight weeks of great reading before the winners are announced on 28 January 2014.
Click on one of the titles or cover images below to learn more about the work and its author, and to read the judges' report. And don’t forget to cast your vote for the People’s Choice Award.
Do you notice a title you’ve read (or a play you’ve seen)? Add your own review, or read those written by our literary bloggers and reviewers from across Victoria. #premiers21
The Unpublished Manuscript Award was announced during the 2014 Emerging Writers' Festival.
The biennial Award for Indigenous Writing was awarded on 3 September 2014, coinciding with Indigenous Literacy Day.
With support from
Winners
- People’s Choice Award Burial Rites, Hannah Kent
- Young Adult My Life as an Alphabet, Barry Jonsberg
- Drama Savages, Patricia Cornelius
- Poetry Liquid Nitrogen, Jennifer Maiden
- Non-Fiction Forgotten War, Henry Reynolds
- Fiction Coal Creek, Alex Miller
- Victorian Prize for Literature Liquid Nitrogen, Jennifer Maiden
Shortlisted Nominees
Prize for Poetry
- Liquid Nitrogen, Jennifer Maiden
- Autoethnographic, Michael Brennan
- Travelling Through the Family, Brendan Ryan
Judges: Gig Ryan, Lisa Jacobson, Paul Mitchell
Prize for Fiction
- Burial Rites, Hannah Kent
- The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan
- Coal Creek, Alex Miller
- The Swan Book, Alexis Wright
- Eyrie, Tim Winton
- Questions of Travel, Michelle de Kretser
Judges: Blanche Clark, Tony Birch, Peter Mews
Prize for Non-Fiction
- Gardens of Fire: An Investigative Memoir, Robert Kenny
- White Beech, Germaine Greer
- Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir, Kristina Olsson
- Forgotten War, Henry Reynolds
- Madeleine: A Life of Madeleine St John, Helen Trinca
- On Warne, Gideon Haigh
- Commended: Traditional Healers of Central Australia: Ngangkari, by Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women’s Council Aboriginal Corporation.
Judges: Kristin Otto, Kate Darian-Smith, Belle Place, Michael Green, Kaz Cooke
Prize for Writing for Young Adults
- Friday Brown, Vikki Wakefield
- Wildlife, Fiona Wood
- My Life as an Alphabet, Barry Jonsberg
Judges: Anna Burkey, Hilary Harper, Alice Pung
Prize for Drama
- Savages, Patricia Cornelius
- The Secret River, Andrew Bovell
- Medea, Anne-Louise Sarks and Kate Mulvany
Judges: Ailsa Piper, Sian Prior, John Bailey
The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards shortlist