Thursday 16 November, 2006

Melbourne Prize

Last night I went along to the announcement of the Melbourne Prize at Federation Square. You'll find a full listing and description of the short listed authors here.The winners were Christos Tsolkas (for Dead Europe) and Helen Garner for her entire body of work. Christos won $30,000 and Helen won $60,000 (half in cash, half in a travel scholarship)making it the richest literary prize in Australia. The idea is that the prize will roam across a range of Art forms, returning to literature again in 2009. In the meantime sculptors and musicians will have been rewarded. The ultimate plan is that the prize be national - a more inclusive prize than the Miles Franklin Award which, contentiously, must represent Australian life. And we all know there has been endless discussion about what that does, or should mean.

As an aside, Hannie Rayson, one of the shortlisted writers, made a very witty laucnh speech when she launched Judy Horack's new book for Scribe the other day. The new Scribe website was designed by my girlfriend who has just begun a new business called Inventive Labs.

Another aside: Jane Palfreyman was at the announcement and I can report that she looked very well and happy after going to Mongolia for a holiday and then resigning from Random House. She finishes there this Friday. No announcements have been made as to who is replacing her.