The winners of the 2008 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were announced at an awards dinner at Melbourne's Federation Square on Monday night, at the end of the successful Melbourne Writers' Festival.

Helen Garner, who took home the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction for The Spare Room (Text), told the audience of publishers, authors, playwrights, library and government staff, that she was ‘terribly gratified my book has been welcomed into the realm of fiction' in being nominated for the $30,000 prize. Garner said she knew that some readers were of the view the work should not be categorised as fiction, but said she was ‘sick of arguing [the point].'

This year's nonfiction award, the $30,000 Nettie Palmer Prize, went to Meredith Hooper for The Ferocious Summer: Palmer's Penguins and the Warming of Antarctica (A&U), and was collected by Allen & Unwin's trade publishing director Sue Hines on behalf of the author. Hooper sent a note of thanks, writing from the Scott Institute in Cambridge--where she promised she would be celebrating with cake.

The other awards presented by Victorian Premier John Brumby on the night included:

The C J Dennis Prize for Poetry: Press Release (Lisa Gorton, Giramondo Publishing)

The Prize for Young Adult Fiction: Tomorrow All Will Be Beautiful (Brigid Lowry, A&U)

The Prize for a First Book of History: The Lamb Enters the Dreaming: Nathanael Pepper and the Ruptured World (Robert Kenny, Scribe)

The Prize for Indigenous Writing: Anonymous Premonition (Yvette Holt, UQP)

The Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer: Going Finish (Mandy Moroney)

The Grollo Ruzzene Foundation Prize for Writing about Italians in Australia: Head over Heel (Chris Harrison, Murdoch Books).

Monday night's awards were attended by almost 300 guests and featured First Tuesday Book Club host Jennifer Byrne as MC and a keynote address from Victorian author and editor of the recent Growing Up Asian in Australia (Black Inc.) Alice Pung.

This year's awards attracted 653 entries, with a record number of entries received for the Indigenous Writing and First Book of History categories.

For a full list of winners, including drama and essay writing prizes, click here.

http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/09/09342/

This article from Thorpe Bowker's Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

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