Publishing Prize
The Shortlist
Alicia Marie Carter
Minotaur Toes
PS Cottier and NG Hartland
The Thirty-One Legs of Vladimir Putin
Susan Saliba
There is Something that Waits Inside Us
Sonya Voumard
Tremor
The Winners
Sonya Voumard
Tremor
PS Cottier and NG Hartland
The Thirty-One Legs of Vladimir Putin
The judging panel was Kevin Brophy, Rebecca Burton, Julian Davies, Rashida Murphy and Kim Swivel.
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
— NONFICTION WINNER —
Sonya Voumard
Tremor
Comments from the Judging Panel
Why this book is different
Tremor is notable for its compellingly astute interweaving 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.
Why we liked it
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
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.
— FICTION WINNER —
P S Cottier & N G Hartland
The Thirty-One Legs of Vladimir Putin
Comments from the Judging Panel
Why this book is different
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.
Why we liked it
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 Author
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.
Winning Authors
Interview
Julian Davies, publisher and editor at Finlay Lloyd and member of the Judging panel, interviews Vomard, Cottier and Hartland about their works.
The Shortlist
Roger Averill, Slippage
Rebecca Burton, Ravenous Girls
Rachel Flynn, New Moon Rising
Kim Kelly, Ladies’ Rest and Writing Room
Jane Skelton, Breathing Water
Olivia De Zilva, Hold on Tight
The Winners
Rebecca Burton, Ravenous Girls
Kim Kelly, Ladies’ Rest and Writing Room
The Judging Panel was Katia Ariel, Christine Balint, John Clanchy, Stefanie Markidis and Julian Davies.
About the Author
Rebecca is the author of two novels for young adults, Leaving Jetty 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.
Rebecca Burton
Ravenous Girls
Comments from the Judging Panel
Why this book is different
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.
Why we liked it
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 charactacters.
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 is the author of two novels for young adults, Leaving Jetty 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.
About the Author
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.
Kim is also a book editor and is currently researching a PhD on Australian historical fiction through Macquarie University. Originally from Sydney, she now lives in Millthorpe, central west New South Wales, on Wiradjuri Country. Find out more about Kim and her work at kimkellyauthor.com.
Kim Kelly
Ladies’ Rest and Writing Room
Comments from the Judging Panel
Why this book is different
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.
Why we liked it
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 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.
Kim is also a book editor and is currently researching a PhD on Australian historical fiction through Macquarie University. Originally from Sydney, she now lives in Millthorpe, central west New South Wales, on Wiradjuri Country. Find out more about Kim and her work at kimkellyauthor.com.
Winning Authors
Interview
Julian Davies, publisher and editor at Finlay Lloyd and member of the Judging panel, interviews Rebecca and Kim about their work. Here, you can watch the full-length interview or a shorter collection of extracts.
The 20/40 Publishing Prize is overseen by an expert advisory board:
John Clanchy
Donna Ward
Dr Meredith McKinney
Emeritus Professor Kevin Brophy AM
With assistance from
Strategic Adviser: Dr Bidda Jones AM
Technical Adviser: James Smith
The 20/40 Publishing Prize is overseen by an expert advisory board:
John Clanchy
Donna Ward
Dr Meredith McKinney
Emeritus Professor Kevin Brophy AM
With assistance from
Strategic Adviser: Dr Bidda Jones AM
Technical Adviser: James Smith
Finlay Lloyd is an independent, non-profit publisher, founded in 2005, dedicated to encouraging imaginative and challenging writing, to subtly innovative design and to celebrating the pleasures of print on paper in an electronic age. To find out more, visit our website.
Finlay Lloyd is an independent, non-profit publisher, founded in 2005, dedicated to encouraging imaginative and challenging writing, to subtly innovative design and to celebrating the pleasures of print on paper in an electronic age. To find out more, visit our website.
E: finlaylloyd@sharewater.net