The Guardian - Stella prize 2021: finalists 'span the gamut' of human enterprise and experience
Twelve works have been longlisted for the $50,000 literary prize for Australian women and non-binary writers
A slew of debut works feature among the finalists in the 2021 Stella prize.
The longlist for the annual literary award for Australian female and non-binary writers was announced on Thursday evening.
Among the contenders are Laura Jean McKay, who collected Australia’s richest literary prize, the Victorian prize for literature, earlier this year for her debut novel The Animals in that Country, and journalist Louise Milligan, for her nonfiction work, Witness, which examined the justice system’s treatment of child abuse and sexual assault victims.
Along with McKay, three other finalists are first-time authors of full-length works of fiction: Cath Moore has been nominated for her young adult novel Metal Fish, Falling Snow; Jessie Tu for A Lonely Girl Is a Dangerous Thing; and Nardi Simpson – one half of the vocalist duo the Stiff Gins – for her novel, Song of the Crocodile. Rebecca Giggs has been nominated for her first nonfiction work Fathoms: the World in the Whale, and Ellena Savage is longlisted for her debut full-length collection of essays Blueberries.
Short fiction, a collection of essays, and a novel translated from Indonesian to English (Intan Paramaditha’s The Wandering) are among the longlist nominations.