As mentioned here in late May, the Melbourne Prize is to be Australia's richest literary prize, valued at $60,000. The short listed authors for the main prize are: Helen Garner, John Marsden, Alex Miller, Dorothy Porter and Hannie Rayson. Best writing award finalists are: Azhar Abidi, Ben Chessell, Neil Grant, Sonya Hartnett, Mary Ellen Jordan, David McCooey, Ross Mueller, Carrie Tiffany, Christos Tsiolkas and Henry von Doussa. The winners wil be anounced on November 15th.
I'd like to be able to explain the difference between the two awards, and even why there are two awards after the initial reports only mentioned one, but the only listed website for the prize is STILL not functioning.
