Prizes increased for literary awards
[ The University of Melbourne Voice Vol. 1, No. 6
28 May - 11 June 2007 ] By Katherine Smith
Support boosted for Australian biography and Indigenous writing.
Prizes for two of the University of Melbourne’s five prestigious literary awards have almost tripled in value in 2007, making them some of the more lucrative on the Australian literary scene.
The Awards are administered through the University’s Australian Centre and support Australian writers in a range of genres.
The prize for this year’s Kate Challis RAKA Award is $25 000, up from last year’s $10 000.
The Kate Challis RAKA Award is offered for work by an Indigenous playwright and, according to Director of the Australian Centre Dr Fay Anderson, is one of the richest awards in Australia for Indigenous creative artists.
The Award, which predates other prizes for Indigenous creative endeavour, was established in 1989 by the eminent art historian Professor Emeritus Bernard Smith in honour of his late wife, Kate Challis. The Award reflects the long-standing interest of Kate Challis in Indigenous Australian culture.
The winner of the 2008 Peter Blazey Fellowship will receive $15 000, up from $5000. The Peter Blazey Fellowship is offered nationally to further a work in progress in the non-fiction fields of autobiography, biography or life writing.
The Peter Blazey Fellowship was established to honour the memory of Peter Blazey – journalist, author and gay activist. It has been made available through the generosity of Clive Blazey and Tim Herbert, brother and partner respectively of Peter Blazey.
Announcing the awards, Dr Anderson said: “The Australian Centre is pleased and immensely proud to be able to administer these prestigious awards, which are unprecedented in Australia and offer the recognition, as well as the financial rewards, that the award recipients deserve.”
Australian Centre Australian Lit-erary Awards in 2007 also include:
The Asher Literary Award – a $10 000 award for Australian women writers whose work carries an anti-war message or theme.
The DJ (Dinny) O’Hearn Memorial Fellowship – a $5000 award for emerging writers in the areas of fiction, poetry or drama.
The Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize – a biennial prize to enable an Australian poet to visit Ireland and to facilitate the visit of an Irish poet to Melbourne. The 2008 prize will be open to Irish poets.
Applications for the RAKA, Blazey, Asher and O’Hearn prizes close 2 July.
The next call for submissions for the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize will be at the beginning of June.
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