AustLit
History
Inaugurated in 2017, the Woollahra Digital Literary Award offers a prize for Fiction published digitally in the first instance, and a prize for Non Fiction published digitally in the first instance. It is orchestrated by the Woollahra Library.
Latest Winners / Recipients
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Year: 2020
winner (Fiction) The Final Boys 2018 single work short story
— Appears in: Meanjin , Autumn vol. 77 no. 1 2018; (p. 76-81)winner (Non-fiction) A History of Reading : Alan Marshall and Helen Keller 2019 single work essay
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , May 2019;'On 9 May 1933, the day before the Nazis burned her book as part of their action against books of ‘un-German spirit’, Helen Keller wrote an open letter to them, which was published on the front page of the New York Times. ’You can burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe,’ she said, ‘but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels and will continue to quicken other minds.’ Today, if Helen Keller is thought of at all, it’s as the blind and deaf girl who, through the efforts of her teacher, learned to communicate. There’s scant acknowledgement that she was even capable of having ideas, and she’s often reduced to nothing more than testament to the ideas of others. However, Keller not only spoke, but read and wrote four languages, and was a prolific poet and essayist. The ideas that led to the Nazis burning her book Out of the Dark were contained in the essay ‘Why I Became a Socialist’.' (Introduction)
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Year: 2019
winner (Non-fiction) The Hot Desk : Working Hot by Mary Fallon 2019 single work essay
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , February 2019;'You have to remember things were different back then. In 1989, when Working Hot was published, homosexual acts in NSW had been decriminalised for only five years; in Tasmania they would remain illegal for another eighteen. Teachers, public servants, most particularly employees of the Catholic Church, were often sacked if their homosexuality was disclosed. The films In the Realm of the Senses and John Waters’ uncut Pink Flamingos were banned.' (Introduction)
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Year: 2017
winner (Fiction) y Picnic at Mount Disappointment Port Adelaide : Ginninderra Press , 2017 10799005 2017 single work novel'In this wise, witty and moving story, fifteen-year-old Lucy arrives from inner-city Melbourne to live on a farm in the early 1980s. Wandong hosts the second largest truck and country music festival in the southern hemisphere…and nothing else.' (Publication abstract)
winner (Non-Fiction) Excavating St Peters 2016 single work essay
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , September 2016;