Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Awards Winners 2011
The winners of this years prize have been announced. Congratulations to all the winning and shortlisted participants.
Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Awards Prize 2011
The Pink Lloyd
Category Winners 2011
Short story: Donyale runs a heart / Laura Vitis
Dorothy Porter Award for Poetry: Dying languages / Joan Kerr
Novella: The Pink Lloyd / Christopher Breach
Graphic short story: Slow panic / Gregory Mackay
eBook: What she said - a month in a decade in a lifetime / Hariklia Heristanidis
Judges' comments
Short story: Donyale runs a heart
Eerie and dark, ‘Donyale Runs a Heart’ uses language in experimental and creative ways, to compelling effect. While the lyrical language washes over the reader, the overarching story is especially shocking because the finer details, such as who and where the characters are, remain perplexingly oblique. Seeing through the lyricism to the writer’s underlying dark meaning was an awful and stunning revelation, and the layers of meaning here rewarded rereading. 'Donyale Runs a Heart’ is an ambitious, vivid story, peopled with fully realised characters and host to unimaginable trauma. That the writer was able to create this dark and compelling world in such a short piece makes it all the more impressive.
Cate Blake, Denise O’Dea, Roderick Poole, Ian See, Jacinda Woodhead.
Read Donyale runs a heart PDF 16Kb
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Dorothy Porter Award for Poetry: Dying languages
Dying Languages is a highly original poem, ambitious in scope. It is an elegy of sorts to the loss, not only of words, but of cultures. The poem begins, disarmingly, with academic linguistic terms, but then it plunges the reader into the search for ‘signs of life’. The poet’s attention to detail here is excellent, as she chooses words and images from the ‘dying language’ that speak to the human condition:
How have I lived without
onsay, to pretend to love,
onsra, to love for the last time?
Revolving gently around these themes of love and loss, Dying Languages never falls into sentimentality. In the middle section, the poet adopts the clipped tones of the colonialist, unwittingly inflicting pain whilst experiencing their own. This section is a haunting incarnation of the colonial hubris that has historically fuelled the loss of languages and cultures. The poem ends with a subtle, yet powerful image of a language being scrambled by cultural change.
Overall, Dying Languages is both poignant and well-crafted. We were unanimous in selecting this work as the winning poem.
Andy Jackson, David Tenenbaum, Sandra Thibodeaux.
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Novella: The Pink Lloyd
The Pink Lloyd is a playful and affectionate portrait of adolescence, a tremendously witty evocation of the 1980s. Novellas sometimes read like expanded short stories; The Pink Lloyd effortlessly establishes character and place befitting a larger work. Warm, cheeky and full of heart, the superhero antics of Lloyd Paterson ('Super Genius' and massive Pink Floyd fan) and his mate Arnold are a joy to read. 'To be continued', for sure.
Julia Carlomagno, Steve Grimwade, Stuart Koop, Barry Scott, David Winter.
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Graphic short story: Slow Panic
Slow Panic is a sophisticated piece of storytelling: understated, well-paced and observed, providing a clever take on a universal experience. It is extremely well-written and drawn and there is a lovely clarity to the storytelling, both thoughts and dialogue. The humour in Slow Panic is also beautifully achieved, a deft balance of empathy and satire. It demonstrates that a satisfying story structure is possible to create within a small number of pages, in this case, eight.
Bernard Caleo, Nicki Greenberg, Erica Wagner.
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eBook: What she said - a month in a decade in a lifetime
From a diary, to a blog, to an eBook, Hariklia Heristanidis allows readers into her life, her mind and heart in a lifelong journey full of passion and dreams. This is a true story, full of beginnings and endings that takes place in different times and spaces. Her digital footprints can be followed from the past to the future, through the clever use of images and web links. ‘What She Said’ is about life, the unexpected and hope through the passage of time.
Nikos Bogiannidis, Chris Chinchilla, Lisa Dempster.
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Shortlist for 2011
Short Story
The boy with the skeleton arm / Alicia Jennings
The dolphin / Sarah Schmidt
Donyale runs a heart / Laura Vitis
Leave him with me / Erin Kelly
Please suck / Penelope Chai
Dorothy Porter Award for Poetry
Dying languages / Joan Kerr
Harry Houdini, famous magician, flies for 2 and ½ minutes / Kent MacCarter
High Street / Debi Hamilton
Vision of a second landing / Frank Boyce
Weather events / Jillian Pattinson
Novella
The hissing of summer lawns / Oliver Driscoll
The Pink Lloyd / Christopher Breach
The walkman mix, 1992 / Courtney Collins
Graphic Short Story
Flora / Maude Farrugia
Grandpa / Bruce Paterson
Mrs Cowperthwaite's body / Laura McLauchlan
Phosphene Ally / Matt Huynh
Slow panic / Gregory Mackay
eBook
What she said: a month in a decade in a lifetime / Hariklia Heristanidis
The little nomad: Kabul to Paris via Melbourne / Shekib Shaker
Loving son / Peter Christiansen
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About the prize
The Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Awards encourage emerging writers and celebrate Melbourne’s status as a UNESCO City of Literature.
The Awards are administered by Melbourne Library Service, sponsored by Copyright Agency Limited and Readings and supported by the Emerging Writers’ Festival, Allen and Unwin, the Victorian Writers’ Centre, Australian Poetry.
All applicants must read and agree to the Terms and Conditions
The aims of the Awards are to:
- Support, and give recognition to, emerging writers
- Strengthen Melbourne’s status as a UNESCO City of Literature
- Promote Melbourne Library Service as a place of ideas and creativity
There are five categories in the awards:
Prizes will be awarded to the value of $1000 in each category. The main prize - the Lord Mayor’s Award to the value of $5000 - is chosen from a shortlist made up of the winners of each of the five categories.
Judging panel
Meet the judging panel
The competition opened on Thursday 26 May 2011. Submissions must be received by 6.00 pm, Wednesday 31 August 2011. Late entries will not be considered.
Category-specific requirements
1. Short story
Stories should be no more than 3,000 words in length.
2. The Dorothy Porter Award for Poetry
Poems may be written in any style but may not exceed 200 lines. This includes sub-headings and epigraphs but does not include titles or spaces between lines.
3. Novella
Novellas should be no less than 10,000 words and no more than 20,000 words in length. The novella must be fiction.
4. Graphic short story
A graphic short story is defined as a narrative related through a combination of text and art, often in comic-strip form. However, some graphic short stories contain no text.
- Submissions should be on A4 paper, in portrait orientation;
- Stories should be four to eight pages in length;
- The graphic depiction can be in any form.
5. eBook
An eBook (also e-book, ebook, digital book) is a text- and image-based publication in digital form produced on, published by, and readable on computers or other digital devices.
- eBooks should be no more than 20,000 words in length;
- They may be fiction or non-fiction;
- They should be submitted using the online entry form;
- Proof of permission to reproduce or use any content, such as photos or music owned by another party, must be provided.
How will I know if I am successful?
The judging panel will review all the applications and the short listed entrants will be contacted. Winners will be announced in November 2011.
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