Congratulations to Australian Writers’ Centre graduates in the Queensland Literary Awards

Congratulations to Al Campbell and Sandhya Parappukkaran, both Australian Writers' Centre graduates, who are finalists in the Queensland Literary Awards 2022!

Al Campbell is author of the incredible novel The Keepers. As a graduate of several Australian Writers' Centre courses, including the Write Your Novel program, Al’s wonderful story has touched so many readers and the accolades keep coming in. We are so thrilled for Al because this recognition as a finalist in the The University of Queensland Fiction Book Award category and The Courier-Mail People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award is so well deserved.

Also huge congratulations to Sandhya Parappukkaran, who completed the course Writing Picture Books at the Australian Writers' Centre. Her beautiful picture book is The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name and is a finalist in the children’s book category.

They are both in such great company including the following finalists.

Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance ($15,000)

• Wounded Country (Quentin Beresford, NewSouth)
• Muddy People (Sara El Sayed, Black Inc.)
• The Burnished Sun (Mirandi Riwoe, UQP)
• Operation Jungle (John Shobbrook, UQP)
• Another Day in the Colony (Chelsea Watego, UQP)

Fiction Book Award ($15,000)

• The Other Half of You (Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Hachette)
• Cold Enough for Snow (Jessica Au, Giramondo)
• The Furies (Mandy Beaumont, Hachette)
• The Keepers (Al Campbell, UQP)
• Australiana (Yumna Kassab, Ultimo)

The University of Queensland Nonfiction Book Award ($15,000)

• Lies, Damned Lies (Claire G Coleman, Ultimo)
• Muddy People (Sara El Sayed, Black Inc.)
• The Mother Wound (Amani Haydar, Macmillan)
• The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen (Krissy Kneen, Text)
• Another Day in the Colony (Chelsea Watego, UQP)

Children’s Book Award ($15,000)

• My Brother Ben (Peter Carnavas, UQP)
• A Glasshouse of Stars (Shirley Marr, Puffin)
• Kunyi (Kunyi June Anne McInerney, Magabala)
• The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name (Sandhya Parappukkaran, illus by Michelle Pereira, HGCP)
• The First Scientists (Corey Tutt, illus by Blak Douglas, Hardie Grant Explore)

Griffith University Young Adult Book Award ($15,000)

• Girls in Boys’ Cars (Felicity Castagna, Pan)
• Katipo Joe: Wolf’s lair (Brian Falkner, Scholastic)
• Morrison and Mr Moore (Michael Hyde, In Case of Emergency Press)
• Social Queue (Kay Kerr, Text)
• Sugar (Carly Nugent, Text)

University of Southern Queensland Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection ($15,000)

• Dark as Last Night (Tony Birch, UQP)
• The Kindness of Birds (Merlinda Bobis, Spinifex Press)
• The Burnished Sun (Mirandi Riwoe, UQP)
• If You’re Happy (Fiona Robertson, UQP)
• Lake Malibu and Other Stories (Su-May Tan, Spineless Wonders)

Judith Wright Calanthe Award for a Poetry Collection ($15,000)

• Take Care (Eunice Andrada, Giramondo)
• Statis Shuffle (Pam Brown, Hunter Publishers)
• accelerations & inertias (Dan Disney, Vagabond)
• At the Altar of Touch (Gavin Yuan Gao, UQP)
• Bees Do Both: An antagonist’s carepack (Ann Vickery, Vagabond)

The Courier-Mail People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award ($15,000)

• Whole Notes (Ed Ayres, ABC Books)
• The Keepers (Al Campbell, UQP)
• Muddy People (Sara El Sayed, Black Inc.)
• Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (Anita Heiss, S&S)
• The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen (Krissy Kneen, Text)
• Red Heaven (Nicolas Rothwell, Text)
• Crime Writer (Dime Sheppard, Ruby Books)
• Another Day in the Colony (Chelsea Watego, UQP)

David Unaipon Award for an Emerging Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Writer ($15,000)

• ‘Finding Billy Brown’ by Edoardo Crismani
• ‘Wawun, Judulu and The Big Storm’ by Julie-Ann ‘Garrimaa’ Moore
• ‘Always Will Be–stories of Goori sovereignty, from the future(s) of the Tweed’ by Mykaela Saunders
• Untitled by Rick Slager
• ‘Unplanned Journey: A personal account of one Indigenous woman’s life’ by Aunty Joan Tranter

Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer ($15,000)

• ‘Do you like the artist Georgia O’Keeffe?’ by A E Macleod
• ‘The Interventions’ by John Richards
• ‘Sunshowers’ by Emily Winter
• ‘Things Left Unsaid’ by Yen-Ron Wong

Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award ($12,500)

• Rebecca Cheers
• Marilena Hewitt
• Miranda Hine
• Sean West.

The winners will be announced on Thursday, 8 September 2022.