The novelist, short story writer, essayist and former academic, Amanda Lohrey, is the winner of the Patrick White Literary Award for 2012, worth $23,000.

The judges’ citation is available here.

Calls for applications for The Nature Conservancy of Australia’s second biennial Nature Writing Prize will open on Monday 16 July 2012.  The $5,000 biennial award is for an essay between 3,000 and 5,000 words in the genre of ‘Writing of Place.’

The competition’s judges are Geordie Williamson, literary critic with The Australian, and Dr Janine Burke, distinguished biographer, art historian and author of The Nest.  They will award the prize to an Australian writer whose entry is judged to be of the highest literary merit and which best explores his or her relationship and interaction with some aspect of the Australian landscape.

The Nature Conservancy Nature Writing Prize was created to promote and celebrate the art of nature writing in Australia as well as to encourage a greater appreciation of Australia’s magnificent landscapes.  The prize has been made possible thanks to a generous donation from The McLean Foundation, which is keen to promote and celebrate the literature of nature in Australia.

The deadline for submissions, which are capped at 5,000 words, is 16 November 2012.  The winner will be announced next March in Melbourne.  Writers can register their expression of interest in the prize at natureaustralia.org.au or by emailing Australia@tnc.org.  Please direct media inquiries to Penny Underwood on (03) 9818 8540 or at mediawise@mediawise.net.au.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a leading conservation organisation working around the world in more than 30 countries to protect the lands and waters on which all life depends.  The Nature Conservancy has worked with Indigenous groups and other partners to protect more than 6 million hectares in Australia since 2000.  We helped to secure 29 high priority additions to the National Reserve System, including some of the largest private protected areas in Australia.  The Nature Conservancy is now supporting the conservation of nearly 30 million hectares of largely Indigenous lands across northern and central Australia and we’re working to conserve the Great Western Woodlands, the world’s largest intact temperate woodland.  Visit The Nature Conservancy at www.natureaustralia.org.au.

Two eminent Australian writers were recognized in the weekend Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Peter Carey was made an Officer of the Order of Australia, AO, for “distinguished service to literature as a novelist, through international promotion of an Australian identity, as a teacher, and as a mentor to emerging writers”.

The Reverend Emeritus Professor Peter Daniel Steele SJ was made a Member of the Order of Australia, AM, for  “service to literature and higher education as a poet, author, scholar and teacher”.  Unfortunately Professor Steele’s surname was omitted by some media outlets who listed him as Emeritus Professor Peter Daniel.

ASAL congratulates warmly both Peter Carey and Peter Steele and joins with the wider community in celebrating their talent and achievements.

Bernadette Brennan
President, Association for the Study of Australian Literature

The judges for the 2102 ALS Gold Medal, for a work of outstanding literary merit published in 2011, are pleased to announce that the following titles, in alphabetic order of author surname, have been longlisted:

Steven Amsterdam, What the family needed (Sleepers)
Christopher Edwards, People of the Earth (Vagabond Press)
Diane Fahey, The Wing Collection: new & selected poems (Puncher & Wattman)
Anna Funder, All that I am (Penguin)
Gail Jones, Five Bells (Random House)
Gillian Mears, Foal’s Bread (Allen & Unwin)
Alex Miller, Autumn Laing (Allen & Unwin)
Favel Parrett, Past the Shallows (Hachette)
Eliot Perlman, The Street Sweeper (Random House)
Gig Ryan, Gig Ryan: New and Selected Poems (Giramondo)
Jaya Savige, Surface to Air (UQP)

These titles have been selected from 106 entries.  The judges would like to make special mention of the strength and quality of the poetry entries to this year’s award.  A shortlist will be published in April and the winner of the ALS Gold Medal for 2012 will be announced at the opening of the annual ASAL Conference on 4 July at the University of Wellington, NZ.

Dr Bernadette Brennan, University of Sydney
Dr Ben Miller, University of Sydney
Dr Fiona Morrison, University of NSW

Six poets have been named on the short list for the prestigious prize, the Mary Gilmore Award, presented by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) for the best first book of poetry published by an Australian in the preceding two years.

This prize has helped the careers of many now well-known poets, including Jan Owen, Judith Beveridge, Alison Croggon, Lucy Dougan, David McCooey.

The winner of the Mary Gilmore Award for 2010/2011 will be announced at the Association’s annual conference in Auckland, New Zealand  in July 2012.  This event draws together many of the people who organise the study of Australian poetry at universities, plus other writers, teachers, postgraduate students and librarians.  The winning poet will have opportunities to meet with many of these people while at the conference.

The short list for the Mary Gilmore Award 2010/2011:

Warwick Anderson, Hard Cases, Brief Lives (Ginninderra)
Peter Coghill, Rockclimber’s Hands (Picaro)
Rosanna Licari, An Absence of Saints (UQP)
Vlanes, Another Babylon (UQP)
Chloe Wilson, The Mermaid Problem (APC)
Fiona Wright, Knuckled (Giramondo)

Judges for the 2010/2011 award are all associated with the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Charles Sturt University in Australia.  They include Dr Mark Macleod (Senior Lecturer in English), Dr Derek Motion (Director of Booranga Writers’ Centre) and Chair of the Mary Gilmore Award judging panel, Mr David Gilbey (Adjunct Senior Lecturer in English).

For further information please contact Mr David Gilbey, Chair of the Mary Gilmore Award judging panel and NSW ASAL Representative, at dgilbey@csu.edu.au.