Just in from Australian Book Review:
Jane Goodall and Kevin Brophy share the 2009 Calibre Prize
In its short life the Calibre Prize has fast become the country's premier essay prize, as well as one of the most lucrative essay prizes in the world.
Calibre is a joint initiative of Australian Book Review (ABR) and Copyright Agency Limited (CAL)'s Cultural Fund.
It is intended to generate brilliant new essays and to foster greater interest in the essay form.
This year's Calibre Prize is shared by Jane Goodall for 'Footprints', and Kevin Brophy for 'What're yer lookin' at yer fuckin' dog?'.
Each winner will receive $5000.
On learning of his success, Kevin Brophy [poet, novelist and academic] had this to say:
I am grateful to CAL and ABR for making this award possible, and so valuable. I have been drawn to the essay form over and over again during my writing life, in part, I think, because those rambling speeches my father made at the dinner table to us children were essays. I learned it from him. I love the essay as a form because it has room for story, thought, research, personal elements and even poetry. It can offer every kind of writing, modulating and criss-crossing throughout...
Jane Goodall [novelist, academic and critic] commented:
...Writing can be a mysteriously isolated and inactive form of
activity, but it always seeks connection back to the world, and I so wanted this essay to be connected. 'Footprints' is all about connections, starting with the strange ways that stories have of cross-linking their themes and images, even across great distances of space, time and culture. Ultimately, it's about the connection between the earth and the human foot.
Both winning essays will appear in full in the April issue of Australian Book Review.
Update: Longlist, and shortlisted entries, here.
In its short life the Calibre Prize has fast become the country's premier essay prize, as well as one of the most lucrative essay prizes in the world.
Calibre is a joint initiative of Australian Book Review (ABR) and Copyright Agency Limited (CAL)'s Cultural Fund.
It is intended to generate brilliant new essays and to foster greater interest in the essay form.
This year's Calibre Prize is shared by Jane Goodall for 'Footprints', and Kevin Brophy for 'What're yer lookin' at yer fuckin' dog?'.
Each winner will receive $5000.
On learning of his success, Kevin Brophy [poet, novelist and academic] had this to say:
I am grateful to CAL and ABR for making this award possible, and so valuable. I have been drawn to the essay form over and over again during my writing life, in part, I think, because those rambling speeches my father made at the dinner table to us children were essays. I learned it from him. I love the essay as a form because it has room for story, thought, research, personal elements and even poetry. It can offer every kind of writing, modulating and criss-crossing throughout...
Jane Goodall [novelist, academic and critic] commented:
...Writing can be a mysteriously isolated and inactive form of
activity, but it always seeks connection back to the world, and I so wanted this essay to be connected. 'Footprints' is all about connections, starting with the strange ways that stories have of cross-linking their themes and images, even across great distances of space, time and culture. Ultimately, it's about the connection between the earth and the human foot.
Both winning essays will appear in full in the April issue of Australian Book Review.
Update: Longlist, and shortlisted entries, here.
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