Rugby league star Scott Prince joins a comedian, an academic and a deputy principal as State Library of Queensland’s 2013 black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellows.
Arts Minister Ian Walker today announced the winners, which includes the one-off kuril dhagun prize.
“The 2013 competition revealed such an extraordinary depth of Indigenous literary talent that an additional prize was added to the program. All four winners are outstanding role models,” Mr Walker said.
“kuril dhagun was awarded to Brisbane Broncos player Scott Prince and primary school deputy principal Dave Hartley for their co-authored children’s book Deadly D and Justice Jones – Making the team.
“This year’s black&write! Fellows represent an exciting future for Indigenous writing, editing and publishing in Australia.”
The two fellowship prizes and the new kuril dhagun Prizeare each worth $10,000 and include a publishing deal with Indigenous publishing house Magabala Books.
The Fellows include Townsville comedian Tristan Savage with his science fiction adventure Rift Breaker, and South Australian lecturer Jared Thomas for his young adult novel Calypso Summer.
Highly commended authors for 2013 were Allanah Hunt, for her young adult fantasy novel Lyoness, and Jane Harrison from Victoria for her novel Becoming Kirrali Lewis.
The prizes were awarded following a national competition for published or emerging Indigenous authors of fiction.
black&write! is supported by the State Library in partnership with Magabala Books. Entries for the 2014 competition open in October.