Have you read Rohan Wilson’s bloodthirsty account of the ‘black wars’ in Tasmania, The Roving Party? Do you agree with Cordelia Fine’s take on the science of the sexes in Delusions of Gender? Are you still dreaming of Ireland after reading Libby Hart’s This Floating World? This year, as part of the Premier’s 21 campaign being held in conjunction with the…

Two first-time novelists - Jon Bauer and Kirsten Tranter - are among the eight writers long-listed for this year’s Miles Franklin prize. Kim Scott’s nomination follows on from his regional Commonwealth Prize win and Chris Womersley’s Bereft comes on top of his Indie Awards win earlier this week. The prize is one of the country’s most venerable and prestigious literary awards.

The long list…

Indigenous artist Richard Bell has revealed that he decided the winner of this year’s prestigious Sulman Prize on the toss of a coin. Bell awarded the prize to Peter Smeeth for his painting, The artist’s fate. Smeeth was reportedly less than impressed by the revelation, admitting, “It’s a bit deflating”. The Sir John Sulman Prize is awarded annually to ‘the best subject/genre painting…

Bookseller magazine has announced the shortlist for its Diagram Prize. The award celebrates oddness in book titles. In culling the long-list of 66 entrants into a shortlist of half-a-dozen, judges gave preference to titles that they deemed accidentally - rather than deliberately - odd.

Early favouritism is with Managing a Dental Practice the Genghis Khan Way, although Joel Silverman’s What Colour is Your…

It’s been a busy week for Wheeler Centre presenter Fiona McGregor. An exhibition of her performance work ‘Vertigo’ opened at Sydney gallery MOP. And on Monday, she’s up for an Indie Book Award in the fiction category for her novel Indelible Ink. She writes about the book here.

Another past Wheeler Centre presenter, Chris Womersley, is also nominated for his novel Bereft…

The Public Record Office of Victoria is administering this year’s Community History Awards, which previously were hosted by Information Victoria. Presented by the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, the awards “recognise the contributions made by Victorians to the preservation of Victoria’s heritage”.

Although books dominate the award winners' lists, winners also include CDs, museum exhibitions and, among last year’s winners, a local history tour…

The Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards were announced last night - the same night as the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. Among the many category winners were: Amanda Lohrey, who took out the Fiction Book Award for Reading Madame Bovary; Mark McKenna, whose biography of Manning Clark, An Eye for Eternity, took out the Non-Fiction Book Award (he also won the equivalent prize in…