ACT Writing and Publishing Awards

Along with Eleanor Malbon, I judged the Poetry category of the 2020 Writers Centre ACT Writing & Publishing Awards.

We had excellent submissions to the category, but we ultimately chose Sandra Renew’s collection Acting Like a Girl from Recent Work Press.

‘Acting Like a Girl. From its deceptively declamatory opening poem, ‘Trust what I tell you. / I am here to describe / one of the greatest discoveries / that has ever been made’ this collection brings a muscular and well-dressed strength to its examination of gender, while revealing the protagonist's vulnerabilities as equally robust. As one example, that making a stand can come at a cost, ‘make convoluted arrangements to never leave / the dog home alone and vulnerable.’ while showing that patience and teaching can be ends in themselves, ‘Just wait for the dog. What else do you have to do?’ The book maintains an un-veering focus, and drawn from a series of interviews it develops a historical artifact that shows the reader a multitude of experiences while taking no prisoners; ‘the toad count rose, all those potential princes, under the wheels,’ while acknowledging the finiteness of the individual, ‘Where will my atoms go when I die? They’ll mix and meld with the Sandman, ride the V8 rumble….’

I really enjoyed reading and discussing the poetry books submitted to the ACT Writing & Publishing Awards, congratulations to those shortlisted and thank you to all who submitted their work. It made for some tough choices.

You can find Acting Like a Girl at Recent Work Press, and please get a copy of the Highly Commended books, Blur by the by Cham Zhi Yi and Catching the Light by Suzanne Edgar. You can find Sandra's video response to the award, as well as information on all the other winners at the ACT Writers Centre website.

2017 ACT Writing and Publishing Awards

My book, For All The Veronicas (The Dog Who Staid), was shortlisted in the poetry category for the 2017 ACT Writing and Publishing Awards.

This is my second book and it was developed with an ArtsACT Project Grant during 2015, and the work also benefited from residencies in El Bruc, Catalonia, and at the Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres, both during 2014. I haven’t had poetry nominated for a prize previously so I was stoked to have the book make the shortlist in this ACT award and excited to have it receive a prize.

This is what the judges had to say about it:

‘Andrew Galan's collection is distinct, varied, and engaging. His poems challenge the reader, and do not allow for an easy interpretation. Some require re-readings to fathom both the narrative and metaphorical thrust. It’s a rich collection, with a clear influence drawn from performance poetry, and Galan utilizes conversational, disrupted rhythms to achieve something unique. The imagery is vivid, always inventive, and some individual lines are highly memorable, “You can look in strange places for fathers and you don't always grow out of it.” ’

Congrats to the other two shortlisted award winners, Chris Palmer with Afterlives, and Carmel Summers who edited The Last Day Before Snow, you can see the full list of awards given on the night at the ACT Writers Centre website.