People's Choice Award (2011-)
Subcategory of Victorian Premier's Literary Awards
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Latest Winners / Recipients

Year: 2024

winner Antony Loewenstein for 'The Palestine Laboratory'.

Year: 2023

winner Karlie Noon with Krystal De Napoli, for Astronomy: Sky Country.
winner Krystal De Napoli with Karlie Noon, for Astronomy: Sky Country.

Year: 2022

winner y separately published work icon Black and Blue : A Memoir of Racism and Resilience Veronica Gorrie , Melbourne : Scribe , 2021 20519254 2021 single work autobiography

'The story of an Aboriginal woman who worked as a police officer and fought for justice both within and beyond the Australian police force.

'A proud Kurnai woman, Veronica Gorrie grew up dauntless, full of cheek and a fierce sense of justice. After watching her friends and family suffer under a deeply compromised law-enforcement system, Gorrie signed up for training to become one of a rare few Aboriginal police officers in Australia. In her ten years in the force, she witnessed appalling institutional racism and sexism, and fought past those things to provide courageous and compassionate service to civilians in need, many Aboriginal themselves.

'With a great gift for storytelling and a wicked sense of humour, Gorrie frankly and movingly explores the impact of racism on her family and her life, the impact of intergenerational trauma resulting from cultural dispossession, and the inevitable difficulties of making her way as an Aboriginal woman in the white-and-male-dominated workplace of the police force.

'Black and Blue is a memoir of remarkable fortitude and resilience, told with wit, wisdom, and great heart.' (Publication summary)

Year: 2021

winner Louise Milligan for 'Witness'.

Year: 2020

winner y separately published work icon The Girls : A Memoir of Family, Grief and Sexuality Chloe Higgins , Sydney : Pan Macmillan Australia , 2019 17236884 2019 single work autobiography

'In 2005, Chloe Higgins was seventeen years old. She and her mother, Rhonda, stayed home so that she could revise for her exams while her two younger sisters Carlie and Lisa went skiing with their father. On the way back from their trip, their car veered off the highway, flipped on its side and burst into flames. Both her sisters were killed. Their father walked away from the accident with only minor injuries.

'This book is about what happened next.

'In a memoir of breathtaking power, Chloe Higgins describes the heartbreaking aftermath of that one terrible day. It is a story of grieving, and learning to leave grief behind, for anyone who has ever loved, and lost.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Works About this Award

Winning as a Non-binary Person Alison Evans , 2018 single work column
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 10-16 February 2018;

'The author has written extensively about gender nonconformity and not identifying as a man or a woman. But a recent award win and the misunderstanding and trolling that followed has highlighted how much society still has to learn.' 

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