Cirrus@Austlit

'There has been no shortage of Australian critiques of literary prizes over the last few years. Giramondo’s Ivor Indyk argued that ‘no one is really suitable to be a judge of literary prizes’ and therefore ‘we should get rid of prizes altogether’. Terri-ann White, the director of University of Western Australia Publishing, announced in 2016 that the press would no longer enter its titles in literary awards, because ‘the expense (of entry fees, books and postage) and the time involved in . . . has exceeded our resources’. In what may be the most incisive and blistering recent critique, Maxine Beneba Clarke raised a series of pointed questions about prize-awarding practices, noting their ‘conservative shortlists’, the lack of diversity among awardees, and the absence of ‘a major book award for queer writing’.'  (Introduction)

'On the same day that the Morrison government announced they were giving $500 million to defence so they can buy bigger guns (part of a $3 billion increase to the department), I learned that Overland was not invited to renew its four-year funding from federal arts body the Australia Council.'  (Introduction)

'It was a grey Canberra morning, mid-winter that she passed. A big mob of kuracca flew in over the suburb where we were neighbours for nearly two decades. Booming across the sky, they swept in low over the backyard where she used to scatter seeds. Always big mobs came.' (Introduction(

'A couple of weeks back I was watching stories appear on social media celebrating the historic win of Melissa Lucashenko in the Miles Franklin Literary Award for her novel Too Much Lip. She became the third Indigenous writer to win the prize in its 62-year history, and the sixteenth woman. One moment I was looking at flowers and champagne for her book, the next I was running across Emmett Stinson’s essay arguing that literary prizes are ‘inherently stupid’, published in this magazine literally days after Lucashenko’s win.' (Introduction)