Book2 helps writers deliver their second book
The Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts is pleased to announce Nam Le, Anna Krien and Favel Parrett as the first three recipients of the Book2 Grant, for writers who are embarking on their second book.
“The Literature Board recognises that for many writers, the second book will be the most difficult of their career,” says Susan Hayes, Director of Literature at The Australia Council. “This is particularly the case for literary writers, whose first book will have attracted considerable critical acclaim but a relatively low contribution to their income.”
“The Book2 grant of $50,000 will allow eight writers, over the three-year period of the grant, to travel for research, take time from their day job or organise childcare to assist with the creative process,” says Susan.
Nam Le’s collection of short stories The Boat won numerous Australian awards including the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, and the Melbourne prize for Literature, plus similar awards in the USA.
The Book2 grant will allow Nam Le to complete a much larger work, a novel presenting twentieth century Vietnam from the complex, conflicting perspectives of its locals, rather than its visitors. The grant will give him time to travel for research and complete a first draft of the novel for publication.
In the April 2011 issue of The Monthly, Anna Krien wrote an essay about the scandal that engulfed the AFL community, involving a 16-year-old schoolgirl and the St Kilda football club. With the assistance of the Book2 grant, Anna will take a deeper foray in to this subject.
Anna will write a work of literary non-fiction examining both footy culture and the rise of raunch culture as it contributes to the complexities of rape stories.
Anna’s first book, Into the Woods: The Battle for Tasmania’s Forests, won the Literary/Media work prize at the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, and the People’s Choice Award at the Victorian Premier’s Awards. It was also short-listed for the NSW and WA Premiers’ Awards.
Favel Parrett’s writing has drawn comparisons with Tim Winton’s for her haunting descriptions of the wild Tasmanian coast in her debut novel Past the Shallows – which now approaches 10,000 copies sold in Australia. Her short fiction has been widely anthologised and she was a 2009 recipient of an Australian Society of Authors Mentorship.
In her second book she returns to Tasmania, this time to Macquarie Island and its connections with the Australian Antarctic Division; and to Hobart, where a young girl has recently moved and “tries to find her way in this new place, this stone city full of ghosts and empty streets.” It also focuses on a Danish sailor who works on the Nella Dan, an Antarctic supply vessel which ran aground and was scuttled in 1987 after 26 years of service.
Favel will use part of her grant on an expedition by ship from Hobart to Macquarie Island and will then return to Hobart to complete research at the Antarctic Division in Kingston as well as the Hobart Maritime Museum.
“The extremely high standard of applications made the Literature Board’s job very difficult, but it indicates that the Book2 program fills a gap in the support of new Australian voices,” says Susan.
Book2 is part of the Australia Council’s Creative Australia Artists Grants program, a five year program of funding which delivers to artists the Federal Government’s budget commitment of $10 million in new funding to the arts.
Media contact
Cameron Woods
Communication Adviser
Australia Council for the Arts
T +61 2 9215 9030
M 0412 686 548
E c.woods@australiacouncil.gov.au
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