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2004 Reviewing Competition Winners |
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ABR and the judges congratulate the following winners in the fiction, non-fiction and children's books categories.
Judges Report The judges of the 2004 ABR Reviewing Competition were gratified by the level of interest in this competition and by the overall standard of entries. We received almost 100 entries (a third of them from subscribers). Fiction and non-fiction were evenly divided; there were rather fewer children's/young adult book reviews. To no one's surprise, the most popular book was Helen Garner's Joe Cinque's Consolation: A True Story of Death, Grief and the Law, followed by Shirley Hazzard's The Great Fire and Peter Goldsworthy's Three Dog Night. In the non-fiction category, the field was eclectic, from poetry to memoir to polemic to academic monograph. The judges had to hand it to Alan Whitehead, of Blackheath, NSW, who chose to review the 2005 Sydney and Blue Mountains Street Directory. Next time we look forward to his critique of the telephone directory. The judges remarked on the closeness of many of the readings and on reviewers' preparedness to write frankly about their subjects' strengths and weaknesses. There was much impatience with inattentive or non-existent editing. It wasn't a timid field! First prize in the fiction category goes to Maya Linden, who reviewed Sophie Cunningham's Geography. Ms Linden recently completed her Master of Arts at the University of Melbourne, where she edited Vivid, the university's creative arts journal. Ms Linden writes poetry and prose, and has also written and produced several independent short films. Vivienne Kelly is the non-fiction winner. Ms Kelly, who reviewed Robert Dessaix's Twilight of Love: Travels with Turgenev, tutored in English for some years at Monash University, where she also completed an MA. She is now working on a PhD 'whose topic is, broadly speaking, the intersection in Australia of history and myth'. First prize in the children's/young adult book category goes to Stephanie Owen Reeder, who reviewed Jeannie Baker's Belonging. This is a model review, and shows what intelligence and empathy can be brought to a picture book in a review of 750 words. Dr Reeder has taught at secondary and tertiary levels, and also worked as a librarian. This year she completed a PhD in Communication at the University of Canberra. She is a seasoned reviewer, and has edited a number of books and journals. Currently, she is a full-time editor with Hansard. The winning entries in each category will be published in the February 2005 issue. First- and second-placed entries will also appear on our website. As well as receiving $500 each, our overall winners will be commissioned to write another review in 2005. But we're not stopping there. So impressed were we by a number of entrants (winners or not) that we have already begun to ask them to write for us - another benefit of this unique Australian competition. We look forward to presenting another Reviewing Competition in 2006. |