11 February 2015 Announcing the 2015 Stella Prize longlist

The Stella Prize is delighted to announce the 2015 Stella Prize longlist.

The Stella Prize celebrates Australian women’s contribution to literature. It was awarded for the first time in 2013 to Carrie Tiffany for Mateship with Birds. In 2014, the winner was Clare Wright for The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka. The prize is worth $50,000, and both fiction and nonfiction books are eligible for entry. In just two years, the Stella Prize has already become a fixture on the Australian literary calendar, significantly boosting book sales and raising author profiles. Last year, the Stella Prize also launched a new education initiative, the Stella Prize Schools Program.

From more than 150 entries, this year’s Stella Prize judges – critic and writer Kerryn Goldsworthy (chair); journalist and broadcaster Caroline Baum; writer and lecturer Tony Birch; singer–songwriter Sarah Blasko; and acclaimed author Melissa Lucashenko – have selected twelve books for the 2015 Stella Prize longlist.

The books on this year’s longlist range far and wide, demonstrating the diversity and power of Australian women’s writing. Works by established and highly regarded writers such as Helen Garner and Joan London sit alongside books by exciting new voices and emerging authors; the list includes three debut works, and five books by authors under the age of 40.

The 2015 Stella Prize longlist is: 

• Foreign Soil by Maxine Beneba Clarke (Hachette)
• The Strays by Emily Bitto (Affirm Press)
• Only the Animals by Ceridwen Dovey (Penguin)
• This House of Grief by Helen Garner (Text Publishing)
• Golden Boys by Sonya Hartnett (Penguin)
• The Invisible History of the Human Race by Christine Kenneally (Black Inc)
• The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Laguna (Allen & Unwin)
• The Golden Age by Joan London (Random House)
• Laurinda by Alice Pung (Black Inc)
• Nest by Inga Simpson (Hachette)
• Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven (UQP)

• The 2015 Stella Prize shortlist will be announced at 12 noon AEDT on Thursday 12 March, and the 2015 Stella Prize will be awarded in Melbourne on the evening of Tuesday 21 April.In My Mother’s Hands by Biff Ward (Allen & Unwin)