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Latest Winners / Recipients

Year: 2023

winner (Self-published) y separately published work icon Then Eve Tanya Davies , Australian Capital Territory : A Tiny Publication , 2022 26403706 2022 single work novel fantasy

'Welcome to Avalon. Keep your enemies close.

'When Brigit Harper lifts the mists to the ancient world of Avalon she learns her destiny is to become the next High Priestess. Her fate is to marry the young King Herne and form an alliance as Queen of the Summer Country. But can she trust Herne - and herself when she is with him?

'As her power and magic grows, Brigit must protect Avalon and her priestesses from a ruthless invasion, and herself from the passions and betrayals of love.

'In this original and absorbing tale, Arthurian legend, medieval romances and centuries of Celtic myth combine to create a fantastical journey of love, magic and redemption.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

winner (Traditional Publishing) y separately published work icon The Tilt Chris Hammer , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2022 24978469 2022 single work novel thriller

'A man runs for his life in a forest.
A woman plans sabotage.
A body is unearthed.

'Newly-minted homicide detective Nell Buchanan returns to her home town, annoyed at being assigned a decades-old murder - a 'file and forget'.

'But this is no ordinary cold case, as the discovery of more bodies triggers a chain of escalating events in the present day. As Nell starts to join the pieces together, she begins to question how well she truly knows those closest to her. Could her own family be implicated in the crimes?

'The nearer Nell comes to uncovering the secrets of the past, the more dangerous the present becomes for her, as she battles shadowy assailants and sinister forces. Can she survive this harrowing investigation and what price will she have to pay for the truth?

'Gripping and atmospheric, The Tilt is a stunning multi-layered novel by the acclaimed and award- inning author of the international bestsellers ScrublandsSilverTrust and Treasure & Dirt.' (Publication summary)

Year: 2021

winner (Small Press) y separately published work icon Everything I Am Jenny Bond , Theodore : The Hard Word , 2021 24837984 2021 single work novel

'When her partner of twenty-five years dies, Rebecca Collins discovers the secret life he had been living. Grieving, and with her sense of self in ruins, she embarks on a quest to uncover the truth about the man she loved, and to recreate the shattered image of herself.

'Rebecca is constantly challenged in her quest by visions of her dead partner. Is she going insane or is her current sorrow and anger beginning to mesh with the remnants of an earlier trauma, one she has long ago repressed?

'Seeking the help of a therapist, Rebecca is forced to travel the hidden recesses of her mind. Agonising memories begin to resurface, and she eventually uncovers the well-spring of a far more profound grief ...

'Set in Gerringong, London, Sydney and Geneva, Everything I Am follows the journey of a woman pursued by a past she thought she had abandoned two decades earlier.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

winner (Big Press) y separately published work icon Milk Dylan Van Den Berg , 2020 Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2021 21417867 2020 single work drama

'Like a smack in the face.  That’s how I’d describe it.

'On the precipice of something life changing, a young Palawa man plunges into an exploration of self and Country. 

'Carried with the winds of a metaphysical Flinders Island, the land of his mob and the place where it all happened, he is drawn back to the dawn of colonization. To a woman who bore the brunt of the oppressors’ violence and then forward to her granddaughter, who buried the truth as a means of survival. Stirring up stories together, with parts both  achingly sad and unexpectedly funny, what unfolds reveals by slow degrees painful but important truths.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Year: 2020

winner (Small Press) y separately published work icon Neon Leviathan T. R. Napper , Australia : Grimdark Magazine , 2020 21460842 2020 selected work short story

'A collection of stories about the outsiders – the criminals, the soldiers, the addicts, the mathematicians, the gamblers and the cage fighters, the refugees and the rebels. From the battlefield to alternate realities to the mean streets of the dark city, we walk in the shoes of those who struggle to survive in a neon-saturated, tech-noir future.

'Twelve hard-edged stories from the dark, often violent, sometimes strange heart of cyberpunk, this collection – as with all the best science fiction – is an exploration of who were are now. In the tradition of Dashiell Hammett, Philip K Dick, and David Mitchell, Neon Leviathan is a remarkable debut collection from a breakout new author.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

winner (Big Press) y separately published work icon Desire Lines Felicity Volk , Sydney : Hachette , 2020 18000386 2020 single work novel

'Are you still a liar? The crafting of those five words, even without dispatch, left her chilled.

'Arctic Circle, 2012. On a lightless day at the end of the polar winter, landscape architect Evie Waddell finds herself exhuming the past as she buries Australian seeds in a frozen mountain vault - insurance against catastrophe.

'Molong, 1953. Catastrophe is all seven-year-old Paddy O'Connor has known. Shipped from institutional care in London to an Australian farm school, his world is a shadowy place where lies scaffold fragile truths and painful memories. To Paddy's south in Canberra, young Evie is safe in her family's embrace, yet soon learns there are some paths from which you can't turn back; impulses and threats that she only half understands but seems to have known forever.

'Blue Mountains, 1962. From their first meeting as teenagers at a country market, Paddy and Evie grow a compulsive, unconventional love that spans decades and crosses continents, taking them in directions neither could have foreseen.

'Set against the uneasy relationship society has with its own truth-telling in history, war and politics, Desire Lines is an epic story of love and the lies we tell ourselves to survive - and a moving reminder that even truths which seem lost forever can find their way home.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

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