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Hey Stella!!!

Chris Flynn October 22

One year after the kerfuffle surrounding an all male Miles Franklin shortlist, The Stella Prize—celebrating women’s contribution to Australian literature—looks to be well on the way to becoming a reality, and a regular fixture in the Awards calendar. This year’s Miles Franklin Award may have redressed some of the issues by having seven women on the longlist of thirteen, three women on the shortlist of five and Anna Funder taking home the prize but there’s still a considerable way to go in dealing with the curious lack of women writers collecting gongs.

To be fair to the Miles Franklin committee, who have borne the brunt of the criticism, literary prizes aren’t exactly being handed out to women elsewhere either. All of last year’s state prizes were awarded to men, as was the PM’s prize. The Age Book of the Year was an exception, the fiction and overall prize going to Fiona McGregor for the inexplicably underrated Indelible Ink.

At this point in the process the argument over whether or not a dedicated prize for women is needed is moot. We can, after all, have as many prizes as we like in literature and even if the Barbara Jefferis Award already exists, so what? Men are eligible for that anyway, as the $35K goes to ‘the best novel written by an Australian author that depicts women and girls in a positive way or otherwise empowers the status of women and girls in society.’ Frank Moorhouse was shortlisted this year, and Anna Funder won. If I came into some moolah and announced I was starting up The Flynn Prize for, say, the best first novel of the year, would anyone seriously be shouting me down and saying it was unnecessary, that there are already plenty of prizes out there and debut novelists should just suck it up and hope for the best? Yeah, I don’t think so, somehow.

So how is The Stella Prize progressing? In a recent press release, the Stella board has indicated that it’s confirmed for 2013. $50,000 will go to the winner, with non-fiction and fiction eligible, although the prize will also fulfill the role of raising the profile of books written by women and hopefully encourage younger writers to get a move on with their manuscripts. All good stuff, and the Prize has been getting plenty of publicity at writer’s festivals and in major overseas media outlets like The Guardian and The New Yorker.

The board has been playing it smart funding-wise too, by seeking to secure a solid three years worth of monies to ensure the prize’s immediate future, and that everything can be paid for. At the moment, everyone involved, and they are legion, are doing so gratis. They’re about a third of the way towards their goal, so still on the hunt for donors and patrons. It’s a solid venture that promises to carry the same weight as The Orange Prize, which was started in Britain twenty years ago for exactly the same reason—that women were frustratingly absent from literary prize shortlists. Get on board by emailing thestellaprize@gmail.com for details, or check out their site thestellaprize.com.au

Is it too early to predict contenders for the inaugural Stella Prize? Too late, I’m doing it. Here are ten stompers for 2012 to start with, and that’s just the fiction.


Carrie Tiffany Mateship with Birds

Deborah Robertson Sweet Old World

Paddy O’Reilly The Fine Colour of Rust

Susan Johnson My Hundred Lovers

Josephine Rowe Tarcutta Wake

Toni Jordan Nine Days

Chloe Hooper The Engagement

Michele DeKretser Questions of Travel

Drusilla Modjeska The Mountain

Romy Ash Floundering


Even Brando supports Stella.


 

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