20/40 Publishing Prize 2026
See the Shortlist
Winners Announcement: Saturday 24 October
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Finlay Lloyd is an independent nonprofit publisher dedicated to encouraging imaginative and challenging writing, subtly innovative design and celebrating the pleasures of print on paper in an electronic age.
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Fiction
Paperback book with dust jacket
20/40 Publishing Prize
Winning Book 2025 – Fiction
Winter is only beginning to thaw in a remote forest as Anna treks for her survival, accompanied by someone she cannot trust. With distilled clarity, this short novel carries the reader on a journey from victimhood to self-possession. The extreme circumstances of this story are written with a quiet yet incisive humanity that invites us to understand whether it is possible to come to terms with the irreconcilable, the unforgivable.
Review Comments
"Now in its third year, the Twenty/Forty Prize has already unearthed some pretty great books. This year’s (fiction) winner, Anna by Angus Gaunt, is the best yet. Anna becomes a universal tale of displacement and finding oneself beyond one’s circumstance. It’s dark, with only the odd flicker of light to give hope. And damn it’s good."
— Bram Presser
"There is much richness contained in this short book that explores power dynamics, survival, human resourcefulness and frailty with continual dramatic tension and beautiful writing that makes Anna a joy to read even at its most disturbing."
— Magdalena Ball, Compulsive Reader
"Anna is a remarkable book and perfectly suited to the shorter form of the novella. …I was soon wholly invested in Anna’s journey from dogged survival to a fragile re-emergence of self. … thought-provoking reading indeed."
— Lisa Hill, ANZ LitLovers
About the Author
Angus Gaunt was born and educated in England and came to Australia in 1987. He now lives in Dharug/Guringai country at the northern edge of Sydney. He has mainly worked in IT, disability care, and second-hand books. His work has been published and nominated for awards in Australia, England and Ireland. His novel, Black Rabbit, was published in 2020.
More 20/40 Winners
Fiction, Novel
Paperback book
A translation from Meredith McKinney, commissioned by Finlay Lloyd, of this small gem of early modern Japanese literature – a tale of thwarted love by an author influenced by Western writing but still profoundly engaged with Japanese life and its traditions.
Review Comments
“There has been no period in the history of modern Japanese society so dramatic and so remarkably tumultuous and fluid as the Meiji Era (1868-1912), and no single work of fiction more revelatory in its depiction of that period than Ogai Mori’s ‘The Wild Goose’. Now we have, in Meredith McKinney’s translation of this iconic novel, a new vein into the heart of that age. Not only that: This translation, in its carefully toned and delightfully measured English prose, brings out Mori’s brilliance as a superb craftsman of style. It is no wonder that his prose was considered, in his day and after, to have marked the epitome of style in modern Japanese.” Roger Pulvers, The Japan Times
“Ogai is a master writer who has found his perfect mistress of a translator in Meredith McKinney.” Barry Hill, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald
“Finlay Lloyd make beautiful books, and The Wild Goose is no exception.” Lisa Hill, ANZ LitLovers
About the Author
Meredith McKinney has translated many books that include the classics The Pillow Book and Essays in Idleness and several novels by the great early modern novelist Natsume Soseki, all for Penguin Classics. Meredith has also edited two books of the letters of Judith Wright, and published a co-translated selection of Judith Wright’s poetry in Japanese. She is a Visiting Fellow at the Japan Centre, Australian National University, where she teaches translation.
Nonfiction, Memoir
Paperback book with dust jacket
20/40 Publishing Prize
Winning Book 2024 – Fiction
Tremor compellingly weaves of the author’s personal experience with our broader societal context where people with disabilities, often far more challenging than her own, try to adapt to the implicit expectations and judgements that surround them. With empathy and flair, Voumard helps us understand that behind the convenient illusion of normality, individual lives chart atypical, often difficult, but ultimately inspiring paths.
Review Comments
"A highly engaging, short-form memoir... Although Tremor is deeply personal, it’s also very outward looking. Voumard uses her journalist’s fine observation skills to make connections and pepper her story with broader, time relevant, societal events... Voumard’s good humour, dignity and empathy for others never waver, which results in a moving and thought-provoking memoir."
— Compulsive Reader
About the Author
Sonya Voumard is a nonfiction writer and former political journalist with The Age. She has written three other books, including The Media and the Massacre (2016), which was listed for a Nita B Kibble Literary Award and longlisted for a Stella Prize. Her essays and stories have been published in Griffith Review, Meanjin, Island and Neighbourhood. She has a Doctorate of Creative Arts from UTS where she taught nonfiction writing for nine years.
More 20/40 Winners
Fiction
Paperback book with dust jacket
20/40 Publishing Prize
Winning Book 2024 – Fiction
The Thirty-One Legs of Vladimir Putin welcomes us to a world where absurdity and reality are increasingly indistinguishable and where questions of identity dominate public discourse. The book spirits us off on a playful journey into the lives of a group of individuals whose physical attributes appear to matter more than who they may be. This comedic exploration of the role of the ordinary person in the exercise of power offers a striking reminder that, whoever we are, we are captured by the systems that govern us.
Review Comments
“This may be the best book I’ve read this year. The Thirty-One Legs of Vladimir Putin is so unusually brilliant, so unique in structure, so ludicrous, hilarious and ominous at once, that it’s hard to believe it’s a work of 21st-century Australian storytelling. To call it a riot, a wild ride, is to sell this thoughtful and muscular bit of fiction short. What we have here is a terrific story, executed beautifully and imaginatively...”
— The Australian
About the Authors
PS Cottier has written eight books of poetry, a collection of stories and a nonfiction pamphlet about the wild-life near Parliament House. Her collection Utterly was shortlisted for the ACT Book of the Year. She has worked as a university tutor, a union organiser, a lawyer and a tea-lady.
NG Hartland’s short stories have been published in Australia, the United States, and South Korea. ‘How to get to be a three-thousand-year-old mining AI’ was included in Robotic Ambitions: Tales of Mechanical Sentience. He has worked in criminology, social policy, and as a ministerial adviser.
More 20/40 Winners
Fiction
Paperback book with dust jacket
20/40 Publishing Prize
Winning Book 2023 – Fiction
Two young women, brought up to expect conventional lives, are thrown together in unexpected circumstances. Each has suffered a devastating loss that challenges their belief in life and themselves. It’s rare to come across a work of deep psychological insight conveyed with such verve and lightness of touch. Kelly sweeps the reader into the lives and passions of her two central characters and into the bustling city streets of Sydney in the 1920s. A powerfully moving book that sparkles with vitality.
Review Comments
‘Kim Kelly's spry and endearing period novella, set in 1920s Sydney, features two unconventional women who were classmates at school, reunited by chance... This buoyant novella, in which passion and period charm converge, offers an elegant tonic for grief.’
— Sydney Morning Herald & The Age
‘In this beautiful novella, Kelly brings to life the bustle of Sydney, its various neighborhoods and streets, its beaches and businesses, in these post-war years. Her development of [her] two characters is tremendous... Kelly’s prose is gorgeous; reading this book is like studying a painting by a master or listening to a symphony.’
— Historical Novel Society
‘Within the pages of this novella Kim Kelly brings to life the loneliness and grief of two women, at a time of renewed fervour, hope and celebration following the end of the war... The story is beautifully written, the sounds and sensations of bustling Sydney life swirl around the two solitary figures adrift in the chaos.’
— Read Plus
‘So much atmosphere, so much detail creating such a sense of place and time bursts forth from this novella. The emotions of both Dotty and Clarinda are so on point, like a shard of glass embedded beneath the skin, I could feel their pain, their sorrow, as they each struggled with their own personal grief... Kim Kelly is one of our finest Australian writers and it gives me so much joy to recommend this winning novella to all.’
— Theresa Smith Writes
About the Author
Kim Kelly was also the Nonfiction Winner of the 20/40 Publishing Prize of 2025 with her memoir, Touched. Kim is the author of twelve novels, including the critically acclaimed novella, Wild Chicory, and The Rat Catcher: A Love Story, which was long-listed for the 2022 ARA Historical Novel Prize. She has also written short stories and essays, both creative and scholarly, and is completing a PhD in Literature at Macquarie University. As a book editor, she is known as Kim Swivel. She lives and works on Wiradjuri and Eora lands, in central west NSW and Sydney. Find out more about her at kimkellyauthor.com.
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Fiction
Paperback book with dust jacket
20/40 Publishing Prize
Winning Book 2023 – Fiction
Stories of family dysfunction often expose us to relentless failure. And while Ravenous Girls is about the tensions and growing distance between two sisters—the elder burdened by anorexia, the younger by self-doubt—it is distinguished by its lithe and tender understanding of the complexities of growing up. Wonderfully expressive, Burton’s re-creation of 1980s family relationships is tuned to the quieter, more nuanced moods behind the fears and hopes of her characters.
Review Comments
‘This short novel about family dysfunction, the fickleness of teenage friendship, mother-daughter symbiosis, and illness, packs an almighty emotional punch... Chronicles of fictional family life don't always understand that trauma is most often multilayered, like scar tissue. Just how fully author Rebecca Burton graps this is evident in her delicate characterisation and sometimes heartbreaking plot.’
— The Guardian
‘Burton has written a vivid, intimate sketch of 1980s adolescence - and a clear-eyed reflection on the traumatic experience of loving someone with a severe eating disorder. Fuelled by emotion recollected in tranquillity, it's a coming-of-age story of remarkable compression, compassion and nuance.’
— Sydney Morning Herald & The Age
‘Ravenous Girls asks profound questions about our desires and needs: Why do we hunger for certain things? What happens when we either give in to our wants, or deny ourselves what we need? This is a short but thought-providing read, and well worth your time.’
— Novel Feelings
‘Ravenous Girls is a compassionate book that sensitively charts the emotional ups and downs that are part of the anorexia landscape... It also conveys something more generally relatable about family relationships – sisterhood and daughterhood, in particular – and about how darned hard it is to grow up.’
— Whispering Gums
About the Author
Rebecca Burton is the author of two novels for young adults, LeavingJetty Road and Beyond Evie, both named as Notable Books by the Children’s Book Council of Australia. Leaving Jetty Road also won a Varuna Award for Manuscript Development and both books were published overseas. A former Senior Editor for the University of Adelaide Press, Rebecca now provides freelance editing and manuscript assessment services. More information about her work can be found at rebeccaburtoneditor.com.
More 20/40 Winners
Poetry
Paperback book with colour illustrations
This collection of poems and collages (reproduced in colour) by Kathy Greene celebrates her life of writing and making images over more than forty years.
Review Comments
‘Kathy’s poems are quite simply a window into her being. Reading them is like looking into the eyes of someone you deeply recognise, who shows you new, quirky and delightful ways of seeing the world.’ Meredith McKinney
About the Author
Born in the United States, Kathy Greene spent most of the last forty years of her life in Australia, where she consistently but unobtrusively wrote and made pictures.
Fiction, Short Stories
Paperback book with dust jacket
‘This is what literature should be: rich, subtle, intelligent, full of the magic and mystery of the world and of the human heart. I will return to this collection again and again. Kevin Brophy is a master at the height of his powers.’ Emily Bitto
‘Brophy’s stories are like precise, meticulous fables, full of characters holding on to small, hard-won truths. The stories are Chekhovian in their quiet empathy, which frequently leaves the reader with an enigmatic final image that shifts the aperture, giving us a poignant glimpse of something ineffable. I loved reading The Lion in Love.’ Cate Kennedy
‘There’s such a range in Brophy’s writing—he can move easily between tender and compassionate grace notes, and dark, troubled worlds, not to mention lightening dashes of humour (overt and sly). But through it all, you’re perpetually aware of an intense, intelligent, minutely observing eye fascinated by the consciousness of the people he’s creating, and allowing us inside... At the end of reading, I simply felt uplifted.’ John Clanchy
Review Comments
‘The Lion in Love is full of characters who engage us with their quiet sincerity. Whether they know it or not, they offer us wisdoms that are worth heeding, because they are like us.’ Whispering Gums
'Brophy is a master of scene-setting and description. He creates characters and relationships that are so ordinary that you can easily see yourself in them. However there are always other layers of universal truths that are skilfully woven into the story and make you want to reread, afraid that you might have missed a telling detail that will expose a whole new, unexpected perspective.' Read Plus
‘The Lion in Love leaves much to contemplate about people, the world and individual experiences, and the experience of reading it and the emotions it evokes is something I will return to regularly... Brophy’s sensitive but purposeful style of expression lends each story a poeticism that...lets one narrative flow into the next.' Westerly Magazine
About the Author
Kevin Brophy has worked as a carer for the aged and disabled, as a child psychologist, a roof tiler, cleaner, and a concrete labourer. After teaching developmental psychology for ten years at technical colleges, he lectured in creative writing for nearly twenty years at the University of Melbourne, where he is Emeritus Professor. As a writer he has chronicled urban Melbourne, especially the street life of his heartland, Brunswick.
He is a past winner of the Calibre Essay Prize, the Michel Wright Prize for poetry, and his fiction has been shortlisted for the Vogel Prize and the FAW Christina Stead award. He has been patron of the Melbourne Poets Union since 2004. In 2021 he was awarded an Order of Australia for services to creative writing. The Lion in Love is his second collection of short fiction.
Fiction, Novel
Paperback book with dust jacket
Nick MacLean, heir to an old Australian farming family, is captured by mujahideen fighters while on a trek in the mountains of Kashmir. For the Mujahid, their commander, this captive is a nuisance—yet, having tasted the West while studying in London, he is drawn into conversation with the Australian. Nick comes to understand that, despite the distance between them, they share a common bond.
Waiting against hope to be ransomed, Nick is also shackled to profound memories— of his parents’ unrealistic expectations of him, and of his sister, Lilly, left solely responsible for a property now in drought and decline. Most of all he is haunted by his youthful friendship with Richard Connolly, the able son of a stockman, who watched with frustration as Nick denied himself the advantages of his birth.
Review Comments
‘A classic Australian story of great ambition and sweep.’ John Clanchy
‘A wise and beautiful book about the quest for honour, truth and love.’ David Marr
‘Sandy Gordon’s novel is a snapshot of post-war Australia, with its country-town gentry and Catholic socialists, with its cities where young intellectuals were learning to drink, to protest the Vietnam war, take on big ideas, and take the most dangerous drugs. Sometimes with grim luck they’d find their way to love or something near it. How do we hold on to a youthful vision? How can we know how far we’ve compromised our best self before it’s too late? And what do you do when you discover you’re after all no smarter, no wiser, and almost no different from what you turned away from in your parents? It’s a novel for grown-ups about growing up—tough, true and vulnerable. Each character glows with life, and each one of them is worth caring about.’ Kevin Brophy
‘Gordon weaves a finely spun tapestry of social change in Australian life…’ SMH/Age
‘…a stylish combination of expertise and passion.’ Australian Financial Review
‘Like the best books that chart tectonic changes, Leaving Owl Creek shows without judgement what Australia used to be… Highly recommended!’ ANZ LitLovers
‘Gordon’s novel has the potential to become an Australian classic in its vivid portrayal of a time of change…’ Read Plus
About the Author
Sandy Gordon has written widely as an expert on security and intelligence. When he finished his last academic book in 2014, he vowed never to write another footnote. Instead, he embarked on the imaginative journey of crafting this first novel, A vital chronicle of pivotal changes in Australian society during the second half of the 20th century, a journey that is also paralleled by the increasingly intense clash between Western cultural and economic power and traditional Islam.
After completing a PhD at Cambridge, Sandy worked in the Office of National Assessments, and as Executive Director of the Asian Studies Council. More recently, he became Defence Fellow at the Australian National University, then head of intelligence in the Australian Federal Police. Later he lectured at various universities on South Asia and regional security.
Fiction, Novel
Paperback book with dust jacket
Shortlisted for the 2020 ACT Book of the Year award.
Although set a hundred years ago, John Clanchy’s new novel powerfully captures the devastating and persistent reality of a fundamental flaw in the role of our major institutions. Central to In Whom We Trust is James Pearse, an essentially good but circumstantially weak man, who is forced to examine his role at the St Barnabas Home for Children, an orphanage that has betrayed the individuals entrusted to its care. He must face the devastating wider consequences of a life of moral equivocation.
Review Comments
“Masterful” writing with “well-developed characters”. The judges of the ACT Book of the Year Award
“One of Australia’s most stimulating contemporary writers.” Canberra Times
“That Clanchy can make such subject matter both engrossing and deeply moving is down to his writing and his understanding of humanity. In Whom We Trust is a powerful and wonderful read.” Whispering Gums
“There is a quiet discipline to this art that resists the potentially sensational nature of its subject.” Australian Book Review
“If the content in this deeply moral, and quietly devastating, period drama feels utterly topical, the atmosphere, dialogue and characters are all imagined with a flair for historical authenticity.” Pick of The Week, Sydney Morning Herald
About the Author
John Clanchyhas written twelve books of fiction—the most recent two with Finlay Lloyd. His other work includes the collection,Vincenzo’s Garden, which won seven awards, including the ACT Book of the Year and the Steele Rudd Award. The novelThe Hard Wordalso won the ACT Book of the Year. International Awards for his stories include The Commonwealth Literature and language Studies Prize (Europe), The Antipodes Prize for Short Fiction, The PEN Air-NZ Prize. Two crime novelsIf God SleepsandAnd Hope to Die(co-authored with Mark Henshaw) have appeared with Gallimard in France and Rowohlt in Germany – the latter becoming a German bestseller. See a sample of his workhere.
Fiction, Novel
Paperback book with illustrations
Call Me is Julian Davies’ seventh novel. Tangentially related to his previous social satire, Crow Mellow, this is a contemporary Australian story of thwarted young love, and an ambitious attempt to take us deep within the lives and experience of two perceptive yet conflicted teenagers in their last year of school. If love beset by complication is a familiar pattern in fiction, then, in this story, complication dances beguilingly between reality and absurdity.
Review Comments
‘Call Me is that rare thing: a novel of young adulthood told with great compassion, humour and psychological acuity—and without a skerrick of condescension or sentimentality.’ John Clanchy
‘It’s so refreshing this book isn’t being marketed as YA fiction because the adolescent voices it creates are so charming and drolly realised and true-to-life they’ll appeal to a much broader readership. …an immersive and amusing read, thanks largely to the feat of literary ventriloquism (Davies) pulls off.’ The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age.
‘Call Me is not only an engrossing story about the psychic growing-up of its protagonists, but one that also offers provocative commentary on both humanity in general and modern society in particular. …Davies pulls it off, resulting in a book that’s both intelligent and fun to read.’ Whispering Gums.
About the Author
Julian Davies is the author of seven novels. He has also written various stories, and essays, including Lost Art (2012), a collaboration with Phil Day on cultural dysfunction in the art world. The book, Backlash – Australia’s conflict of values over live exports, (2016)was written in partnership with Bidda Jones, Chief Scientist at RSPCA Australia.
Davies’ novels have been shortlisted for many prizes: Revival House for the National Book Council Award and the Commonwealth Writers Best First Book, among others, Moments of Pleasure forthe Talking Book of the Year award, The Beholder for the NSW Premiers Award, and The Boy for the Victorian Premiers Award. The Boy has been translated into French, Dutch and Turkish. Crow Mellow (2014), a social satire illustrated by nearly 400 drawings by Phil Day, is the first in a trilogy of novels. The second in the series is Call Me (2018).
Fiction, Novel
Paperback book with illustrations
Julian Davies‘ sixth and most unusual novel, is a contemporary social satire closely based on Aldous Huxley’s first novel (from 1921), Crome Yellow. This playful response to another book is startlingly furthered by the text being surrounded by almost 400 drawings by Phil Day, whose hand-made books are collected by many state and university libraries, including The National Library of Australia. In this lively collaboration between words and pictures, the illustrations form a closely related parallel visual text that weave around and interact with the unfolding story. Set in multi-millionaire Mitchell Rimbush’s bush retreat, where artists and writers on the make gather with their wealthy admirers, conversation is the one constant prerequisite.
Review Comments
“Crow Mellow is a sophisticated hybrid, a marriage of words and visual images… Davies plus Day is a new creature entirely.” Sydney Morning Herald, The Age
“Davies and Day have ‘succeeded with Crow Mellow in achieving that difficult double of producing something different that is also accessible and fun to read.” Whispering Gums
“… Crow Mellow is the kind of book that will draw each reader in differently. Its genius is that whatever… most excites or amuses, no matter how fleetingly it might seem, it does not occur in isolation. The book works as a novel of ideas not because each idea is succinctly explored, but rather because each forms part of a larger conversation… The drawings are nearly as crucial as the words on the page… they provide a visceral counterpoint to the tightly written prose.” Newtown Review of Books
“Crow Mellow is a most unusual book, not like any other that I’ve read.” ANZLitLovers
“This tribute, cum spin off, cum riff, cum admirably original novel, is actually a consistently intelligent, sometimes intriguing tale…” and “has…life, grace, and wit as well a few grotesques.” The Canberra Times
“…we need more books like Crow Mellow – ambitious, unruly and utterly strange.” Australian Book Review
About the Author
Julian Davies is the author of seven novels. He has also written various stories, and essays, including Lost Art (2012), a collaboration with Phil Day on cultural dysfunction in the art world. The book, Backlash – Australia’s conflict of values over live exports, (2016)was written in partnership with Bidda Jones, Chief Scientist at RSPCA Australia.
Fiction, Short Stories
Paperback book
The role of silence in the relationships of the people who populate this richly varied collection of stories is mirrored in the restraint of the writing that captures them. While the characters have all the difficulties communicating that we can recognise in our own lives, Buckle’s deceptively understated style reveals them with startling cumulative power.
Buckle’s stories have appeared widely, two of them in Best Australian Stories (Black Inc), and a number have won or been shortlisted for various prizes.
Review Comments
‘…imbued with a deep sense of knowingness… Buckle’s insights into human relationships make you sit up and pay attention.’ Whispering Gums
‘…put together with… assuredness and (a) piercing eye… Buckle’s tone, bending through various characters and their narratives, is sharply contemporary…’ Verity La
‘Not only is it a stylish book, I have enjoyed each story immensely—a ‘best read’ of 2017! I kept thinking the next story can’t be as gripping and convincing and superb as the last one—and it was.’ Kevin Brophy
About the Author
Stephanie Buckle is a novelist and short story writer who lives on a farm in Brindabella, NSW. Her stories have won a number of awards, including the Marjorie Graber McInnes Short Story Award, and the Fellowship of Australian Writers, A.C.T. Branch, Short Story Award.Behind the Lines won first prize in the E.J. Brady Short Story Award 2006.A Lovely Afternoon won third prize in the Henry Handel Richardson Short Story Award in 2014. Some of the stories have also appeared in previous publications:Lillian and Meredith in Best Australian Stories 2010, edited by Cate Kennedy.Fifty Years in Best Australian Stories 2011, edited by Cate Kennedy. See a sample of her work here.
Nonfiction, Essay
Paperback book with illustrations
Written and illustration by Phil Day, this is a creative essay, come personal reflection, on the relationship between Lewis Carrol’s Alice books, personal identity and argumentative opinion. It is the first in a three-book series Phil plans to write on the embattled nature of individual intellectual and creative autonomy.
Continuing our interest in the book as physical artefact, included in this handsome little book is a colour page and images from a drawing by Phil that recreates the style of Tenniel’s original Alice illustrations.
Review Comments
‘In the spirit of the absurdist and playful logic that characterises the Alice books, A Chink in a Daisy-Chain takes us into the rabbit warren of Day’s mind as he free associates, one thought leading to another…’ Sydney Morning Herald
‘If you know your Alice, you’ll love it. And if you don’t, well, you really should!’ ANZ LitLovers
‘…a fun, mind-bending book.’ Whispering Gums
About the Author
Phil Day has been drawing, teaching art and English to high school students, and collaborating with other writers and artists making hand-made books for twenty years. He runs his own press in Melbourne (Mountains Brown Press).
Poetry
Paperback book with illustrations
Who said what, exactly is an unusual object – a book of playful, punchy, iconoclastic poetry with colourful paintings on its first pages and drawings throughout. Phil Day’s lively, inventive pictures have appeared in other Finlay Lloyd books, but this is a first startling appearance with us for Hartmann Wallis. Or is it?
Review Comments
“…a glorious romp or rant, ranging across history, the minutiae of suburbia, and an acerbic view of the literary and artistic world. The content is enlivening, but the form of the book is an equal part of the pleasure offered. The text is presented in bold, large print, with deliriously smudgy and slapdash illustrations by Phil Day. It is part unhinged journal, part comic, as if Les Murray had decided to write a graphic novel…” The Australian
‘There is joy in wordplay; there are strange segues; there’s dialogue, characters, and narratives; there are allusions to history, religion, art; there’s pathos, even. These poems keep you on your toes, but they also make you laugh…’ Whispering Gums
About the Author
We received a hint as to who this mysterious author may be in an email from an old friend:
I was thinking over our conversation re who the hell is this Hartmann Wallis. It hit me that it is possible he isn’t who he is making himself out to be. Can’t be sure about anything, but I’ve discovered that Hartmann left behind an ambiguous note about Australian author, Robert Wallace, who in the late 1980s and into the 1990s had 4 books published by the London publisher Victor Gollancz. These were also published by the New York publisher, St Martin’s Press. Now it seems we can be pretty certain that Robert Wallace was a pseudonym. And I have to ask, where does that leave Hartmann himself? The biography in the front of Who said what, exactly (which includes photographs of this possibly invented writer and his imagined-to-be wife) seems an attempt to obscure the identity of the author just as ‘Robert Wallace’ was back in the 1980s-90s. It’s just that ‘Wallis’ and ‘Wallace’ kept me thinking. Anyway, silly old me, full of doubt re just about everything. Have fun and stay warm, Robin.
Nonfiction
Paperback book
Bidda Jones and Julian Davies
This in-depth investigation of the live export trade reveals the backstory of that powerful industry and the campaign to bring it to an end, including aspects of the political battle that have not been told until now.
Review Comments
‘You might not imagine that a book about live cattle exports could be absorbing, but this well-written account… is just that.’ The Sydney Moring Herald, The Age, The Canberra Times
‘Backlash is a fascinating… important book.’ PS Cottier, Verity La
‘This is a passionate and disturbing account that should be read by those on both sides of this debate.’ Michelle Grattan
‘A terrific read… A gripping and at times disturbing tale from inside one of the most explosive political stories of recent times.’ Michael Brissenden
‘Backlash lucidly reveals the inside story of the live export drama of 2011 and leaves the reader with a real understanding of the issue and the fiercely competing interests of that extraordinary time.’ Sarah Ferguson
‘A compelling, insightful analysis of an issue that is a litmus test for who we are as a people.’ Andrew Wilkie MP
‘This important book vividly brings to life the events of 2011 and in the process reminds us all of the vital role of people power in forcing government to act to protect animals.’ Lyn White
About the Author
Bidda Jones, head of science and strategy at RSPCA Australia, and Julian Davies worked in close collaboration to bring to life the continuing backlash against the 2011 suspension of the trade to Indonesia. The book examines the ethical, economic and social factors that surround this compelling and controversial issue.
Nonfiction
Paperback book
FLSmalls 7
This long essay by Carmel Bird is an engagingly personal, playful and thoughtful examination of the arrival in 1832 in Tasmania of a shipload of women, sent to redress the imbalance of genders in that colonial settlement.
Review Comments
“I love reading this sort of writing – it’s a challenge, a puzzle. I commend it to you – for the story and for the clever, cheeky writing.” Whispering Gums
About the Author
Carmel Bird grew up in Tasmania, and now lives in rural Victoria. She has published novels and short fiction, essays, children’s books, and manuals on writing, as well as anthologies of stories and non-fiction. Her other recent book is a collection of stories, My Hearts Are Your Hearts, published by Spineless Wonders. Fair Game is Carmel’s first lengthy piece of memoir.
Fiction, Poetry
Paperback book with illustrations
FLSmalls 6
This wonderfully illustrated collection from Paul McDermott contains a haunting parable about a boy and a goat, and a series of poems that are both fiercely ironic and strangely moving.
Review Comments
“McDermott, a comedian who lives by his words, is sure in his language, which is clear and unforced. The pencil drawings are delightful. You can feel the twinkle in his eye – the fun he is having – as you read the stories and look at the pictures. …this is a book that is best experienced rather than described or analysed. It’s a cheekily clever but also delightfully charming ‘little book’”. Whispering Gums
Nonfiction
Paperback book
FLSmalls 8
This long lively essay from Phillip Stamatellis portrays the ‘biography’ of a café in Goulburn in the 1970s and 80s. We witness the café’s passing parade of motley customers through the eyes of the youngest son of the Greek immigrants who run it.
Review Comments
“…an enjoyable read… the nostalgia factor (the memories of Greek and Italian cafes or milkbars…) and the social history (the documenting of such cafes and the lives that surrounder them). Stamatellis captures all this nicely, from a young insider’s perspective.” Whispering Gums
About the Author
Phillip Stamatellis was born into the hospitality industry and raised in his family’s café. He now refers to himself as a reformed capitalist, and now works in the mental health sector. He lives in Goulburn with his wife Janene and daughters Stephanie and Emma. Growing up Cafe is his first book.
Nonfiction
Paperback book
FLSmalls 9
This collection of linked essays from Timothy Morrell explores, with a deft ironic touch, our obsession with travel, in the process taking us to some places that perhaps only the author would want to visit.
Review Comments
“Having a severed cobra’s head dropped in my wine glass and sitting down to an expensive main course of cobra is one of those traveller’s experiences I’d rather someone else did for me. That someone else is Timothy Morrell, who seems to specialise in cutting-edge travel. Most of us don’t immediately think Moldova when contemplating our holidays. Morrell survived it, albeit with a broken ankle and keeping the company of unemployed alcoholics in a “bleak little concrete tavern”. Morrell has a light, ironic style – and a talent for irony is definitely a necessity when visiting some of the places he has.” Sydney Morning Herald
About the Author
Timothy Morrell was born in Melbourne, but spent long periods living overseas. He was formerly a curator at various Australian public galleries, and also worked independently on exhibition projects in Australia, Asia and Europe. He began writing for travel magazines when he passed his use-by date as a contemporary art writer.
Poetry
Paperback book
FLSmalls 10
This collection of prose poetry from Cassandra Atherton creates a naturally intimate world while, at the same time, fluidly examining complex connections between popular and high culture.
Review Comments
“Cassandra Atherton’s… thematically and stylistically linked prose poems (are) full of startling imagery and lush sensuality. The dense, intense prose is often funny, and incorporates all kinds of cultural allusions. These are mostly about writers: Shakespeare and Nabokov feature heavily, and there are also moments with Sylvia Plath, William Carlos Williams and a host of others, milling around promiscuously in Atherton’s prose with Veronica Lake, Gai and Robbie Waterhouse, and White Wings cake mix. It’s fun and clever, and some of it is lovely.” Sydney Morning Herald
About the Author
Cassandra Atherton‘s poetry is concerned with reanimating classic texts and raising the spectres of canonical authors and characters. She enjoys juxtaposing traditional literature with popular culture and cult texts. Cassandra has published many books and was awarded a Harvard Visiting Scholar’s position in 2015-2016.
Fiction, Short Stories
Paperback book
A collection of richly varied long stories by John Clanchy. These stories reveal the disguised impulses and motivations, the telling switch-points of modern life. With humour, insight and compassion, Clanchy draws us deep within the world of his characters.
Review Comments
‘…moments of humour form a perfect counterbalance to the more serious content found in these six long stories… Expertly told, without a false note, they linger in the mind.’ Australian Book Review
‘The latest collection of long stories or – as he calls them – “tales” by John Clanchy is Six, published by the estimable independent firm of Finlay Lloyd. This is literally a slim volume but that description gives no indication of the complex layers of suggestion within each story. Clanchy is another of that not well-enough celebrated band of skilled practitioners of fiction in this country; one who repays rereading… In his psychological acuity, stylistic variety and an unpretentious and justified confidence in his story-telling gifts, Clanchy has produced one of the best recent collections of short fiction.’ Peter Pierce Canberra Times, Brisbane Times
‘This is a powerful, highly skilled and emotionally intricate collection.’ Nigel Featerstone, The Canberra Times
‘I encourage people to invest in a copy of Six and be entertained by an accomplished Australian author.’ Mairi Neil, ANZ LitLovers
About the Author
John Clanchy is best known for his long stories which have won various regional, State and international awards. He has also written five novels. The story collection, Vincenzo’s Garden, won seven awards, including the ACT Book of the Year and the Steele Rudd Award (Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards), both in 2006. The novel The Hard Word also won the ACT Book of the Year. International Awards for his stories include The Commonwealth Literature and language Studies Prize (Europe), The Antipodes Prize for Short Fiction, The PEN Air-NZ Prize. Two crime novels If God Sleeps and And Hope to Die (co-authored with Mark Henshaw) have appeared with Gallimard in France and Rowohlt in Germany – the latter becoming a German bestseller.
Poetry
Paperback book
FLSmalls 1
Anxiety Soup is a vital and intimate collection of poetry.
Review Comments
“…left a lasting impression on this reviewer. Powerful stuff. Anxiety Soup is poetry that is contemporary in its themes, accessible, and enjoyable.” Verity La
“Anxiety Soup by Tara Mokhtari (has) poems about cats, awkward post-youth and even more awkward short romances… (that) hit the mark.” Bait for Bookworms, Bram Presser
About the Author
Tara Mokhtariis a Persian-Australian writer (based both in Melbourne and New York) with a background as a playwright and was co-founder of the award winning Nineteenth Hole Productions. Her poems and articles have appeared in various journals, including VLAK, HEAT, and Cordite.Anxiety Soupis her first book of poetry.
Fiction
Paperback book
FLSmalls 2
The Dark Days of Matty Lang is a powerful story of friendship, love and betrayal.
Review Comments
“Wayne Strudwick plunges the reader into his protagonist’s life of memory loss and painkillers. Matty wakes to the sound of smashing glass determined to fill in the lost moments in time prior to the events that have caused him so much anguish. The Dark Days of Matty Lang is a tale of teen love, loss, misguided loyalties and small-town tragedy.” Verity La
“A taut, melancholic narrative that builds to a truly heartbreaking crescendo. The Dark Days of Matty Lang is a mini-marvel.” Bait for Bookworms, Bram Presser
About the Author
Wayne Strudwick grew up on farm in western New South Wales, studied optometry and now lives in Canberra with his wife and three children. His stories have appeared in Quadrant, WetInk, Westerly and Famous Reporter. He won the 2013 Voiceless Writing Prize.
Fiction
Paperback comic book
FLSmalls 3
A darkly comic collection of cartoons — the drawing is fresh and the stories quiet yet enlivened by playful humour.
Review Comments
“…a series of graphic stories, a small anthology that deals with subjects like, housemates, convenience food, and the mundane aspects of life. It is full of quirky humour… and the loose form of the drawings perfectly compliments the subject matter. Guaranteed to put a smile on your face.” Verity La
“…wickedly funny short graphic stories.” Bait for Bookworms, Bram Presser
About the Author
Natalia Zajaz lives in Katoomba, NSW. She is an art school graduate who has been recovering from the experience by making comics for many years. Nothing Ventured is her first solo book.
Fiction
Paperback book
FLSmalls 4
Bruno Kramzer is an intriguing and disturbing story of evasion and betrayal.
Review Comments
“The character of the title in A.S. Patrić’s Bruno Kramzer is a ‘Professional Rogue’ who is paid to bring down individuals a peg or two. This is often in the form of humiliating pranks and sometimes-sinister acts of violence that, as the first few pages attest, can go horribly wrong. …There is an ambiguity surrounding the setting of Bruno’s world… linked to Kafka’s The Trial, which… results in Bruno Kramzer having a fable-like quality.” Verity La
“(a) deliciously nasty yet warm-hearted tale of a professional rogue in crisis. You’ll smile when the realisation hits; Patricis (is) to Kafka what Stoppard was to Shakespeare.” Bait for Bookworms, Bram Presser
About the Author
A.S. Patric is a Melbourne writer. His first two books have won the Ned Kelly Award and the Booranga Prize, and his Las Vegas for Vegans has been shortlisted the Queensland Literary Awards.
Fiction
Paperback comic book
FLSmalls 5
NY takes its author to Manhattan where she has encounters that surprise and deeply affect her. Mandy Ord is a Melbourne comic writer. Her Rooftops has been reprinted three times by Finlay Lloyd.
Review Comments
“Ord’s comics are instantly recognizable by their heavy ink-swathed style and one-eyed Mandy character. Her work is largely autobiographical and in NY she takes a stroll through Manhattan, full of doubts and is conscious of her vulnerability, but soon comes to realise the Big Apple, for all its promise, has its own.” Verity La
“A very cool microfiction set to pictures about a pop culture obsessed, awkwardly paranoid graphic novelist finding her feet in the big apple” Bait for Bookworms, Bram Presser
About the Author
Mandy Ord has long been part of the local underground comic community, producing a range of self-published mini comics as well as contributing to local and international anthologies. Her first graphic novel,Rooftops, was published by Finlay Lloyd in 2007. She publishedSensitive Creatureswith Allen and Unwin in 2011.NYwas published in 2013. She lives in Melbourne.
Fiction, Novel
Paperback book
The Seaglass Spiral is a saga of two families brought together by the accidents of history and love. Based with fidelity on Alan Gould‘s memories, on letters and diaries, and on information from the public record, these glimpses of the past are brought alive and indeed, given an authenticity only possible through the imaginative reinvention of fiction. Each part of this continuity of stories, each life in the greater pattern, seems to speak back and forth across time and remind us that we are in no real sense alone.
Review Comments
“With The Seaglass Spiral, Alan Gould confirms himself once more as among Australia’s finest and most original living authors (as a poet, as well as in prose). The neglect with which he has been treated may be benign, but it is unforgivable.” Peter Pierce The Age
“This is a book of patterns, but patterns without repetition. So it’s perfectly appropriate that it should be sui generis, a lightly fictionalised story of two families as they move towards personal and genetic entwining, neither a novel nor a memoir, not even that ghastly thing from the Creative Writing courses: creative non-fiction.” Philip Mead
“…if Sebright HAD drowned, he would have survived because he is so alive in these pages. So much honesty, humour, ruefulness, and recovered time brought to the fore seemingly without strain. Very, very good writing always getting on to the next phase interestingly, stacking the levels of the seaglass spiral.” Roger McDonald
“Gould takes his own and his wife’s family histories and uses his gifts as a poet and storyteller to make them intriguing… a slow, dense read but very beautiful.” Kerryn Goldsworthy, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald
“This is an absolutely beautiful book, in every way. The language is gorgeous, acute, observant; the feeling is tender, humorous, earthy and has an unusual elegance all its own. The book as object too is just gorgeous… published by a small press who really care about books.” Sophie Masson, Goodreads
“The Seaglass Spiral has, at once, the scholarly diligence of biography and the imaginative range associated with fiction. There is the sense of the narritive reflecting back and forth between life writing and the fictive, collecting the two in an innovative alignment of their particles.” Felicity Plunkett, The Australian
About the Author
Alan Gould is a multi-award winning novelist, poet and essayist. The Seaglass Spiral is his eighth novel. Among his previous books, The Lake Woman was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Fiction Award 2010. The Past Completes Me: Selected Poems 1973-2003, won the Grace Leven Award, 2006. He lives in Canberra.
Nonfiction, Essays
Paperback book
Phil Day and Julian Davies
Art occupies uneasy ground in contemporary society. Although backed by powerful cultural institutions and increasingly embraced by the middle class, it has become more fractured and alienated. These two essays, both discursive and intimately reflective, examine the judgements we make about cultural significance and the values we bring to choosing the art and artists we celebrate and those we overlook or forget. Inherent here are possibilities of loss far more significant and fundamental than the erasing of any number of individual art objects. Today art is only one more brand.
Review Comments
“Lost Art is an absorbing and lyrical journey through the contemporary art world. Combining a sensibility that is both highly critical and deeply personal, … [it has] complexity and colour to shake off the laziness that is all too prevalent in contemporary art criticism. Both Day and Davies dance and side-step, placing famous and historical cultural figures alongside Hugo Ball’s Dada poems, Peter Cook jokes, and even betting equations for the Melbourne Cup. Lost Art is both welcomingly critical and magnetically alive. I applaud its passion and romance of expression” Scott McCulloch, Australian Book Review
“These two essays take up where many dinner-party conversations leave off in their probing of why we value one work of art over another…a moving case for scepticism about evaluative hierarchies.” Fiona Capp, Sydney Morning Herald
About the Authors
Lost Art is the continuation of a long collaboration between Phil Day and Julian Davies.
Davies and Day also collaborated on Davies’ novel, Crow Mellow, (2014), which Day illustrated with almost 400 drawings.
Nonfiction, Memoir
Paperback book with dust jacket
20/40 Publishing Prize
Winning Book 2025 – Non-Fiction
Documenting the damaging role of anxiety in our lives is hardly new, but Touched takes us inside the destabilising riot of a three-day panic attack with such insight, honesty and humour that the perspective we gain is revelatory and overwhelmingly hopeful. This book has a wonderful breadth of understanding—of the author’s own crazily complex family, of the wider issue of anxiety across society, and of her own voyage as a highly competent yet vulnerable being in a worryingly unhinged world.
Review Comments
‘This little powerhouse of a memoir is at once raw and entirely relatable. With stark and humorous honesty, Kim takes us by the hand and allows us to step inside her mind… I devoured this book in one sitting and then sat for almost just as long again contemplating it.’ — Theresa Smith, Theresa Smith Writes
‘(Touched) interrogates the whole question of anxiety, what it is and where it comes from… it offers the opportunity to empathise and experience ‘compassionate understanding.’ — Helen Eddy, Read Plus
‘…a record of the author’s challenge with anxiety. So vulnerable, but also wise and powerful. I read this award-winning short in a single, near-breathless session, and days later it’s still having an impact on me. Extraordinary.’ — Nigel Featherstone
‘The writing is beautiful, slipping between information-sharing, straight narrative, and light or lyrical rhythmical moments when she takes a breath and so do we. …We should thank Kim Kelly for putting herself out there, so beautifully and so honestly.’ — Sue Terry, Whispering Gums
About the Author
Kim Kelly is a novelist whose Ladies’ Rest and Writing Room won an inaugural 20/40 Prize for fiction in 2023. Kim has also written short stories and essays, both creative and scholarly, and is completing a PhD in Literature at Macquarie University. As a book editor, she is known as Kim Swivel. She lives and works on Wiradjuri and Eora lands, in central west NSW and Sydney. Find out more about her at kimkellyauthor.com.
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