Shortlists announced for NSW Premier’s Literary Awards 2015

The shortlist for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards has just been announced for 2015, and the nominees for the prestigious award are a mixture of long time novelists and incredible new talent.

The Literary award was created by Premier Neville Wran in 1979 and recognizes the countries best novelists, poets, playwrights, scriptwriter’s, translators and authors of non fiction and children’s books. Candidates who are nominated must be living Australian citizens or persons holding permanent resident status in Australia.

A panel of 24 judges consider the novels, poems and scripts, with the prestigious group going over 100’s of entries and breaking down each entry into one of the nine categories.

The list of nominees include longtime writers such as Elizabeth Harrower and Mark Henshaw, whose works have been widely success in the past and are set to excite fiction readers with their new (and old) stories about life and it’s challenges.

Elizabeth Harrower

And through the old shines new light with newcomers like Ceridwen Dovey (whose story revolves around animals and their point of view) and Emily Bitto (whose book The Strays also won the Stella Prize for women’s writing).

The shortlist for the Literary Awards will appear of on NSW State Library website. You can check out that list here.

NSW Premier Mike Baird commented on this years list, saying “The NSW Premier’s Literary Awards have a proud history of recognising and encouraging our nation’s community of authors, translators and writers for screen stage and radio”.

His Deputy Premier and Minister for the Arts Troy Grant followed the Premier’s sentiments, saying “The awards celebrate the cultural significance of our literary talent and this years shortlists include works by established authors as well as new writers who will strengthen Australian writing now and into the future.

The winner will be announced on Monday the 18th of May.