At a ceremony in the State Library of Queensland on Monday night, 31 August, my book The Blue Plateau won the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award (in the nonfiction category). My friend Peter Boyle won the poetry category for his mesmerising book Apocrypha.

Other prizes went to J M Coetzee in fiction for Summertime, and Clive Hamilton in the category of contribution to public debate, for Requiem for a Species.

Check out the other winners: http://www.premiers.qld.gov.au/awards-and-recognition/literary-awards/2010-winners.aspx

The awarding of prizes to Peter Boyle, Clive Hamilton and me suggests, a judging panel prepared, I think,…

My first book of poems, Fire Diary, will be published on 1 October by Puncher & Wattmann.

I’ll launch it in early October at the Tasmanian Poetry Festival. Soon after that, it’ll get an international launch at the Ubud Readers and Writers Festival. Then in November we’ll roll it out in Sydney somewhere (watch this spot), then in Brisbane, Melbourne, down home here in the Southern Highlands, and in the new year in Perth.

My poem “Song of (Someone Like) My Self” has been shortlisted for this year’s Blake Poetry Prize.

The Blake—long a prize for visual art, and since 2008 a prize for poetry, too—honours the mystic, engraver, painter and poet William Blake and encourages poets to engage in the ancient business of spiritual inquiry.  (My poem “Have You Seen” won the prize in its first year, and it’s a delight to be in the running again.)

The judges this year were Anna Kerdijk Nicholson, Ron Pretty and Les Wicks

The prize is announced at the National…

Following on its shortlisting for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award (see my other entry on that), The Blue Plateau has just been shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award (nonfiction), with four other books, including Krissy Kneen’s startling and lyrical memoir of addiction Affection and Brenda Walker’s elegant memoir of reading and recovery, Reading by Moonlight.

They announce the prize in Brisbane on 31 August.

I’m deligthed to see that Peter Boyle is shortlisted in poetry for his stunning Apocrypha. And in fiction, Stephen Lang is listed for his lovely novel 88 Lines About 44 Women,…

The Blue Plateauhas been shortlisted in the nonfiction category of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. The prize—which pays $100, 000 (but who’s counting?) and was introduced to encourage Australians to take literature as seriously as, say, cooking—is by far the biggest in the land.

So it’s a thrill to see my love child of a book recognised—alongside works by Shirley Walker, David Malouf and Alex Miller, for example

Even if the country weren’t engaged on an election campaign just now the winners wouldn’t be announced for a couple of months. The prize tries to let attention…