Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2023
Your definitive guide to Australia’s best writing. Learn more about the shortlisted and highly commended works.
2023 Winners
Victorian Prize for Literature
Cold Enough for Snow
Jessica Au
People’s Choice Award
Astronomy: Sky Country
Karlie Noon & Krystal De Napoli
Fiction
Cold Enough for Snow
Jessica Au
Non-Fiction
Root & Branch: Essays on Inheritance
Eda Gunaydin
Drama
The Return
John Harvey
Poetry
At the Altar of Touch
Gavin Yuan Gao
Writing for Young Adults
We Who Hunt the Hollow
Kate Murray
Indigenous Writing
The Upwelling
Lystra Rose
Unpublished Manuscript
One Divine Night
Mick Cummins
Fiction
Non-Fiction
Childhood
Shannon Burns
Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong
Louisa Lim
Our Members Be Unlimited: A Comic about Workers and Their Unions
Sam Wallman
People who Lunch: Essays on Work, Leisure and Loose Living
Sally Olds
Root & Branch: Essays on Inheritance
Eda Gunaydin
The Uncaged Sky: My 804 Days in an Iranian Prison
Kylie Moore-Gilbert
Indigenous Writing
Drama
Writing for Young Adults
Unpublished Manuscript
Highly Commended
Fiction
- All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien (HQ Fiction: an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers)
- Limberlost by Robbie Arnott (Text Publishing)
- Loveland by Robert Lukins (Allen & Unwin)
Non-Fiction
- Bedtime Story by Chloe Hooper (Scribner Australia)
- Big Beautiful Female Theory by Eloise Grills (Affirm Press)
- Hard Labour: Wage Theft in the Age of Inequality by Ben Schneiders (Scribe Publications)
Indigenous Writing
- Cartwarra or What? Selected poems and short stories by Alf Taylor (Magabala Books)
- Masked Histories: Turtle Shell Masks and Torres Strait Islander People by Leah Liu-Chivizhe (Melbourne University Publishing)
Drama
- Orange Thrower by Kirsty Marillier (Currency Press in association with Griffin Theatre Company)
- An Indigenous Trilogy – Act I: Three Magpies Perched in a Tree by Glenn Shea (The Storyteller)
Poetry
- Harvest Lingo by Lionel Fogarty (Giramondo Publishing)
- Song of Less by Joan Fleming (Cordite)
Writing for Young Adults
- My Spare Heart by Jared Thomas (Allen & Unwin)
- Sugar by Carly Nugent (Text Publishing)
The 2023 Judges
Fiction
Melissa Cranenburgh, Melissa Manning, Gene Smith, Leah Jing McIntosh (convenor)
Non-Fiction
Jonathan Dunk, Ramona Koval, Cher Tan, Yves Rees (convenor)
Indigenous Writing
Laniyuk, John Morrissey, Bridget Caldwell-Bright (convenor)
Drama
Melissa Reeves, Tasnim Hossain (convenor)
Poetry
Eleanor Jackson, Maria Takolander, Adolfo Aranjuez (convenor)
Writing for Young Adults
Alison Evans, Jessica Walton, Erin Wamala (convenor)
Unpublished Manuscript
Miles Allinson, Allee Richards, Astrid Edwards (convenor)
The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards were inaugurated by the Victorian Government in 1985 to honour literary achievement by Australian writers. The awards are administered by the Wheeler Centre on behalf of the Premier of Victoria.
