2018 Queensland Literary Award winners show off local talent

The Palaszczuk Government has congratulated this year’s line-up of talented writers at the Queensland Literary Awards, including the winners of the prestigious Queensland Premier’s Awards.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the Queensland Premier’s Awards recognised home-grown talent.

“These awards highlight the important role of our literature and my congratulations goes to this year’s winners,” she said.

“We have proudly supported these awards since we formed Government in 2015.

“The former LNP Government recklessly scrapped the former prestigious Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards when they first formed Government. We established the Queensland Literary Awards in response to the outcry from the literary community.”

This year’s winner of the $25,000 Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance went to Brisbane writer Jackie Ryan for We’ll Show the World: Expo 88.

“This prize is awarded to an outstanding work, by an Australian writer, focused on documenting, discussing or highlighting a uniquely Queensland story,” the Premier said.

“We’ll Show the World: Expo 88 tells a truly Queensland story, explores the social and political climate of the time, and shows how Expo 88 came to transform the state.

“The judges praised Jackie Ryan’s meticulous research and her ability to capture how Expo contributed to Queensland’s evolution from an inward-looking state to one that embraced a more cosmopolitan sense of itself.”

Minister for the Arts Leeanne Enoch congratulated Brisbane writers Anna Jacobson and Bri Lee, who won the two Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Awards for writers under 30 years of age.

“These talented writers are making themselves heard in the literary community and both received a $10 000 cash prize and $2500 worth of career development support with their awards,” Ms Enoch said.

“Anna Jacobson is a Brisbane-based poet, writer, and artist who was recently named as the 2018 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize winner and securing a publishing contract with the University of Queensland Press.

“Bri Lee is a writer and editor whose work has been widely published. As the founding editor of the quarterly Hot Chicks with Big Brains, Bri has published diverse non-fiction about women and their work since 2015. Her first book, Eggshell Skull, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2018.”

Minister Enoch also commended the three Brisbane-based recipients of the 2018 Queensland Writers Fellowships, funded by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and State Library of Queensland.

“Michael Gerard Bauer, Laura Elvery and Jackie Ryan will use their fellowships towards developing their manuscripts and writing projects,” she said.

“The Queensland Literary Awards celebrate our home-grown authors and recognise literary talent across many genres.

“The Palaszczuk Government supports the Queensland Literary Awards to share our stories, and nurture the next generation of writers.

“I congratulate all of this year’s accomplished authors, and look forward to reading the winning books.”

The Queensland Literary Awards are administered by the State Library of Queensland. For a complete list of winners, see www.qldliteraryawards.org.au