"The Australian" examines what it means to win a major literary prize in Australia, concentrating on the Miles Franklin and "Australian"/Vogel Awards.
Rosemary Sorenson gives a fair rundown on the past history of the awards, stopping along the way to comment on those winners who seem to have disappeared with trace: writers such as Elizabeth O'Conner who won the Miles Franklin in 1960 with The Irishman, and Christopher Matthews, Fotini Epanomitis, and Jim Sakkas who all won the Vogel only to slip from view as fast as they arrived.
Michael Heywood, of Text Publishing, has a few interesting things to say about prizes in general along with the news that his publishing house is in the process of finalising details of yet another. I keep suggesting a prize for a first novel by an author over the age of 40, but no-one listens.
