MELBOURNE PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2009 Finalist Exhibition Catalogue – 9–23 November 2009 Federation Square, Melbourne – www.melbourneprizetrust.org 2009 PARTNERS & PATRONS The Melbourne Prize for Government Partners Founding Partners Corporate Partner Literature 2009 is made possible by the generous support of our partners and patrons. Exhibition and Event Partner Melbourne Prize for Best Writing Award Literature 2009 Partner 2009 Patron Patrons Diana Gibson AO Associate Civic Choice Award 2009 Partners URQUHART CHARITABLE FUND Partner Media Communications Professional Services Exhibition Signage Audio Visual Partner Print Partner Exhibition Consultant Wine Partner Website Development Banners Trophies littleirrepressiblewonton.com Names24.com.au Fundere Foundry Design by Cornwell ABOUT THE MELBOURNE PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2009 Public exhibition 9–23 The Melbourne Prize Trust and our partners and patrons are Melbourne Prize for Literature 2009 delighted to offer the Melbourne Prize for Literature 2009, Finalists November 2009 in the Best Writing Award 2009, Civic Choice Award 2009 and the Atrium at Federation Square, public exhibition of finalists, held at Federation Square between Barry Hill 9 and 23 November 2009. Shane Maloney Melbourne. Alex Miller In 2008 Melbourne was designated by UNESCO as an Gerald Murnane international City of Literature, only the second in the world Hannie Rayson after Edinburgh. The designation recognises the importance of literature to the city and the state and the central role that writers – have played, and continue to play, in the cultural life of Best Writing Award 2009 our community. Finalists The Melbourne Prize for Literature 2009 and Awards Tom Cho recognise and reward the abundant writing talent in our state. Joel Deane The Melbourne Prize for Literature 2009 program is proudly Lisa Gorton supported by the Victorian Government through its City of Chloe Hooper Literature initiative. Simmone Howell As a community, we are fortunate to have local and state Myfanwy Jones governments, organisations and private individuals who Lally Katz recognise the importance of and generously support arts and Nam Le cultural activities. Amra Pajalic Jeff Sparrow With the support of the City of Melbourne and all our partners and patrons, we are delighted to provide opportunities for writers to advance their literary talent. In doing so, we demonstrate the importance of our creative capacity and reinforce Melbourne’s reputation as a cultural centre. The work of finalists in each category form a unique display at the free public exhibition held in the Atrium at Federation Square, Melbourne. Recipients will be announced on our website on 11 November 2009. Also follow us on www.facebook.com. Votes for a finalist to win the $3,000 Civic Choice Award can be made at www.melbourneprizetrust.org or in the voting form in this catalogue, which is supplied during the exhibition. The recipient will be announced on our website on 27 November 2009. Simon Warrender Executive Director & Founder Melbourne Prize Trust www.melbourneprizetrust.org MELBOURNE PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2009 FINALISTS – BARRY HILL HANNIE RAYSON SHANE MALONEY ALEX MILLER GERALD MURNANE Finalist Melbourne Prize for Literature 2009 BARRY HILL Photo by Susan Gordon–Brown Published Books Barry Hill is a distinguished Australian writer in The Schools over a lad’s lizard-hunting days. Egret several genres. He has won Premier’s Awards for Penguin, 1977 That was the time of solid stories, It’s not even standing at a sensible angle to poetry, non-fiction and the essay. His short fiction of organizing rather than mourning. A Rim of Blue: stories the river: has been widely anthologized and translated into McPhee Gribble, 1978 beak neither facing downstream Japanese and Chinese. He has written extensively This group, with family in it, is resolution. nor into the flow of fish. It’s askew, the hulk for radio, and his first libretto, ‘Love Strong as Death,’ Near the Refinery: a novel I remember stupidly thinking, the clay’s so wedged was performed at the Studio, at the Sydney Opera McPhee Gribble, 1980 Sticky no union man could turn in it. House in 2002. He is possibly best known for his Headlocks & Other Stories A Long Swim the head re-coiled so that monumental, multi-award winner, Broken Song, McPhee Gribble, 1983 it’s slack on the dowdy shelf of itself. a study of the linguist TGH Strehlow, which Professor Swimming out there A study in oddball patience, non- Musculature in ultramarine, John Mulvaney has described as ‘one of the great The Best Picture: a novel expectation. Australian books,’ and by Professor Robert Manne McPhee Gribble, 1988 In weed-green sea You can think ‘mackerel’ We’d been talking about the pace of Noh as ‘a landmark event in the history of Australian Raft: Poems 1983-1990 Till you’re blue in the face plays high culture.’ Over the last few years his poetry Penguin, 1990 has appeared in the annual editions of Black Inc’s But you go like tow rope— and of the way the ghost or the ghost of a Best Poems. Of his most recent books of poems: As Sitting In: Heavy, frayed, stretched ghost We Draw Ourselves, was short listed for the 2008 Heinemann, 1991 From pier to pier bears witness: the vantage point being the From year to year thing. Victorian Premier’s Awards; Necessity: Poems Ghosting William Buckley: a poem 1996-2006 won the 2008 Judith Wright Prize. Heinemann, 1993 Entering at the southern one But this stillness, so unobserved, seems Between 1998 and 2008 he was Poetry Editor Mind finned with intent The Rock: Travelling to Uluru post-ghost. of The Australian. He has recently completed Crossing crags and sea-grass Allen & Unwin, 1994 Its dream if it has one is way up river, a three-year stint as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Gutters gouged by ebb tides the University of Melbourne. its own witness, standing indifferent to The Inland Sea: poems Rays much wider than beds drama. Salt, 2001 Their glide-aways heavenly Over sands that cloud the hourglass Broken Song: T. G. H. Strehlow Impossible bird! But then In light that breaks the light, as if suddenly fed up with our spectatorship and Aboriginal Possession Squid invisible , abalone opalescent, it drops, stone-grey, a curtain. Knopf, 2002 The flood tide your freedom The Enduring Rip: A History of Queenscliffe Its reverse your test of worth Then an inner wing cleaves to that outer MUP, 2004 wing Emerging at the northern one and a long night cloak has fallen— The War Sonnets Your body out of water a twin-panelled shroud. Picaro, 2004 Your flesh, on arrival Majestically erect in attendance upon itself, Necessity: Poems 1996-2006 The underside of flounder, sword drawn, its feet are powerfully still Soi 3, 2007 Each tooth in your head A little colder, your sense in the river’s rushing inks. As We Draw Ourselves: Poems Of time like coral Five Islands Press, 2008 Savagely it knit-picks its breast, stretches, Himalayan Fire stabs at the autumn sky— – wounding the emptiness over cold waters. As you casually entered the gompa-- Extracts: Travel weary, a meagre warmth in you, Acknowledgements: all poems have been Old Photo: The Union Buries… Too much mist in the lungs-- selected from Best Australian Poems A solid pack around his grave. The winter sun hit the sutras. (Black Inc) between 2004—2009. Good steel to a magnet, the sky leaden The mountain light, having raised the black with the warmth, somehow, of common frost ground. Shafted the night wind south Raided the cave I did not know them all Struck the west wall. but the bulk of them knew me. Their leader told them of his bookish son The ten thousand leaves slept in their boxes Their hundred thousand sounds and of his grand children gathered—see, Were wrapped in saffron. near my elbow on the lava plain The scrolls were as separate as toffees. on the hard crust of the Flats Then, with the wall as good as on fire near thistles, stone walls, Carbon Black And every box glowing like an old coal and the cracker’s flame leaping You could hear the seed syllables where the cranes once flew Crackling away inside you. Darjeeling 2005 Finalist Melbourne Prize for Literature 2009 HANNIE RAYSON Works Hannie Rayson was born and educated in Melbourne. Please Return to Sender The Glass Soldier I am in the middle of my life, but I’m not in Theatreworks, 1980 MTC, 2007 the centre of it. Does that make sense? It’s In 1981, she graduated from the VCA and cofounded like life is always happening somewhere Theatreworks. She became a full time writer, Mary The Swimming Club else. I try to say to people: the trouble is producing newspaper columns, magazine features, Theatreworks/Playbox, 1981 Black Swan/MTC (2009) I don’t know how to live. Really. But they television scripts and thirteen plays. don’t understand so I’ve stopped saying Leave It Till Monday – She attracted serious attention with Hotel Sorrento, it. Of course I know how to live. I own Mill Theatre, 1984 which became an AFI-award-winning film in 1985. Extract: my own apartment. I earn OK money. Her plays are on the VCE syllabus and have been Room to Move The Swimming Club I drive an OK car. I go to my sister’s for performed by all major Australian theatre companies, Theatreworks/Playbox, 1985, AWGIE for (Act One) barbecues. I have a subscription to the with overseas productions in the UK (including the Best Original Stage Play Sydney Theatre Company and after the West End), Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Japan, BIRD: As if I could afford to drop show I go out with my girlfriends to dinner Slovenia, Austria, France and Finland.