Big Day
December 17th, 2009 § 1 Comment
Yesterday I went to the city to receive my prize for the Melbourne Prize for Literature’s Civic Choice Award. During a lovely morning tea hosted by Simon Warrender, Executive Director and Founder of the Melbourne Trust, at the Federation Square boardroom I received my cheque and a certificate from Mark Rubbo, Managing Director of Readings. I want to thank Readings and Hardie Grant Books and of course Melbourne Prize Trust for their support.
Simon was saying how the Civic Prize has grown since the Melbourne Prize began from 400 votes to this year’s 2900 votes. So that was wonderful to hear. Also the videos that were part of the exhibition will be uploaded on You Tube so I’ll be posting the link as soon as it’s ready. The videos were amazing and some of them were funny as.
I promptly hot-footed to the bank to deposit the cheque in the 39 degree heat. Then I went to the bookstore to celebrate and bought Justine Larbalestier’s Liar which I’m really looking forward to reading. Steig Larson’s first book in the Millenium Trilogy. The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas, which I read and loved for my husband, and In Cold Blood by Truman Capote cause I’ve always wanted to read it.
On the way there and back I listened to a podcast from the Reading Matters Debate 2007: Girls’ Books vs Boys’ Books and it was absolutely hysterical. Loved Justine Larbalestier’s argument that girls rule the world because of girl germs, Jack Heath’s comparison of boy books being a series of action strung together by plot whereas girls books strive too hard for realism and him reading extracts of Tara Moss’ and Lee Child extracts to prove his point, Jacqueline Wilson asserting that there are female writers still pretending to be male and providing examples to prove it, Simmone Howell talking about all the useless things she learnt from boy books, and David Levithan going nuclear to win the debate. You have to listen to it to believe it. I’m going to be downloading more podcasts to listen to because they are so much fun.
It’s been an amazing month in terms of personal milestones. I received an Arts Victoria grant for creation to work on my new project The Other Daughter, the sequel to The Good Daughter, and an Artists in Schools grant to work at my former high school St Albans Secondary College to develop a short story anthology with the Year 9 extension program in the second half of next year. So next year is going to be all about writing and getting my brain engaged again. Sofia has been going to childcare consistently for a month so next year she’ll be going every morning and I’ll get to write, write, write. So full of glee.
The only bummer has been a month of colds, ear infections, antibiotics, upset tummies, and general malaise for the whole family. Hopefully we’re all on the mend now and will be able to enjoy the holidays in style.
Amra, congratulations on your success! I still haven’t read your book but will be getting to it this summer.