Publishing Prize

The Winners

Finlay Lloyd Publishers and the 20/40 Judging Panel are delighted to announce the Winners for 2024.

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— 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

— 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 Winning Authors

Sonya Voumard

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

P S Cottier

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.

N G Hartland

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.

Comment from the Publisher, Julian Davies

'This year’s two winning books are very different but intriguingly complementary—the nonfiction winner, Tremor, is an extended essay on the unsettled place of disability in our society, and the fiction winner, The Thirty-One Legs of Vladimir Putin, plays with the intersection of identity with politics.

'To help remove any extraneous influence, entries in the 20/40 Prize are evaluated blind, so the judging panel was interested to discover, much as with last year, that four of the five shortlisted authors are women; that one of the prize winners is written by an author partnership; and that all three authors of the winning books have been published before.

'One of the core aspects of our ethos at Finlay LLoyd is to collaborate at length with our writers throughout the editing process to help them find the best possible version of their book. And this year it has again been a delight to work with them to bring these very different but equally vital books to Australian readers.'

Interview with the Winning Authors

Julian Davies, publisher and editor at Finlay Lloyd and member of the Judging panel, interviews Vomard, Cottier and Hartland about their works.

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A 10% discount applies to this year's Winning Books, and all past Winners, for a limited time only.

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The 20/40 Publishing Prize is overseen by an expert advisory board:

Dr Christine Balint

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: