Tag: Queensland

2012 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Announced

Posted July 23, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literary News / 0 Comments

The Winners of the 2012 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards were announced today in a ceremony in Canberra.  A big congratulation to the following winners;

  • Luke Davies won the award for Poetry
  • Robert Newton’s When We Were Two won the award for YA Fiction
  • Mark McKenna’s An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark won the Non-Fiction award
  • Bill Gammage’s The Biggest Estate on Earth won the Australian History award

And the winner of the award we are all interested in; best work of Fiction for 2012 goes to Gillian Mears for Foal’s Bread. Gillian was up against some great books including; All That I Am by Anna Funder, Sarah Thornhill by Kate Grenville, Autumn Laing by Alex Miller and Forecast: Turbulence by Janette Turner Hospital.

The most Interesting part of the award ceremony for me was when Luke Davies used his time to criticise Campbell Newman for scrapping the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, by saying “The clear message from Campbell Newman’s wrong-headed decision to eliminate the Queensland Premier’s awards is that reading is simply not important, not valuable to the greater culture and that celebrating excellence even less so”.

Well done to all the winners, each of them was also awarded $80,000 as part of the award.

Question Tuesday: Should Taxpayers Subsidise Writing Programs and Awards?

Posted June 12, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Question Tuesday / 0 Comments

Yes.

For the sake of a blog post, I better expand on this answer. I think the government should set money aside for the arts and when they get neglected, I get very upset. See my post about the Queensland Government Cutting Literary Award in order to save $244,000 of a $47,000,000,000 budget. I don’t think taxpayers should be subsidising every writer but I do believe there is a need for state and national writer awards that would bestow unpublished authors with a publishing contract and publicity.

I think that Australia does a great job in helping writers get a start in the industry. With programs like state writing centres which helps train writers into refining their arts, and the Australian/Vogel Literary Award which recognises writers under the age of 35 with unpublished manuscripts. Even though the Queensland government has cut funding to the Queensland Literary Awards, this award will continue to run, even if they are unable to give some prize money to the winners.

I’m sure there is more money being put in to developing writers within Australian that I haven’t mentioned. It does surprise me just how much our government does for the arts. Sure, I would like to see more money put into the arts but I’m sure many people within Australian would object to that. I’m not sure what it’s like for writers in other countries but I think I truly live in a great country.

There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money either.” — Robert Graves

ArmchairBEA 2012: A Positive Experience with Books

Posted June 6, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in ArmchairBEA / 0 Comments

While reading in itself has had a very positive experience for me personally; I think that books have helped me with make friends and get to know more people in the community. Not only has the reading made me want to blog which has been a very enjoyable experience, it’s also made me want to go to university and study a Bachelor of Arts in Literature. So while it’s helped improve myself with knowledge and as a person, it has also had a good impact on my social life too. While I consider myself an introvert, the books have made me want to get involved with my local library with all the great book events they have; and I’m hoping that this might lead to me maybe helping them out as much as they have helped me. It’s also helped me become more involved with my awesome local indie bookstore, by giving them all my money. Well, also I’ve gotten to know the wonderful people that work there and I’ve even joined their book club even if I have disliked the books that have been read there.

I like to think that my book blog is starting to get known around my local community and I would love to thank CityLibraries Townsville, Mary Who Books and ABC North Queensland for all there bookish things they do for the community and the positive impact they have had on my life as well.

ArmchairBEA is a virtual convention for book blogger who can’t attend Book Expo America and the Book Blogger Convention. Banner by Nina of Nina Reads and button by Sarah of Puss Reboots