NZ Author Among Shortlistees For Australian Award

New Zealand Author Alison Wong Among Shortlistees For Australian PM Awards

Penguin Group (NZ) are delighted to advise that As the Earth Turns Silver, by Alison Wong has been shortlisted for this year's Prime Minister's Literary Awards in Australia.

Wong is in very good company with J.M. Coetzee, Deborah Forster, Alan Gould, Eva Hornung, David Malouf and Alex Miller the other fiction award shortlisted authors.

Australian Arts Minister Peter Garrett announced the titles - in four categories comprising fiction, non-fiction, and for the first time young adult fiction and children's fiction – yesterday (15th July). Garrett said being shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards was "a great achievement for authors that will bring further public recognition of their writing".

Alison Wong, who is published in Australia and the UK by Picador and in New Zealand by Penguin, was born and raised in Hawke's Bay and, apart from several years in China, spent most of her adult life in the Wellington region. In 2002 Alison was the Robert Burns Fellow at the University of Otago and now lives in Geelong, just outside of Melbourne. Her poetry collection Cup (Steele Roberts) was shortlisted for the Jessie Mackay Best First Book for Poetry at the 2007 Montana New Zealand Book Awards, and her poetry was selected for Best New Zealand Poems 2006 and 2007. As the Earth Turns Silver is her first novel.

As the Earth Turns Silver is also a finalist in the fiction category of the country’s most prestigious literary award, the inaugural New Zealand Post Book Awards. The awards are announced at a gala ceremony on 27 August.

Alison will also be back in New Zealand in September as a guest at the Christchurch Writer’s Festival.

ENDS

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