The Stella Prize 2021 longlist will be announced tomorrow night (tune in here).
Unlike the judges, I’ve only read a dozen or so eligible books but I’m aware of a bunch that keep crossing my radar. On that rather flimsy basis, I’m predicting the longlist*.
Phosphorescence by Julia Baird
Fathoms: The World in the Whale by Rebecca Giggs
A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville
The Loudness of Unsaid Things by Hilde Hinton
Kokomo by Victoria Hannan
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay
The Mother Fault Kate Mildenhall
Stone Sky Gold Mountain by Mirandi Riwoe
Blueberries by Ellena Savage
Where The Fruit Falls by Karen Wyld
Loner by Georgina Young
Some of these selections are my personal wishlist, and if the list was 15 books long, I’d have included Show Me Where It Hurts by Kylie Maslen; Smart Ovens for Lonely People by Elizabeth Tan; and Hysteria by Katerina Bryant.
The shortlist will be announced on March 25 and the winner on April 22.
*The longlist is made up of twelve books, usually a mix of fiction and non-fiction, memoirs and short stories (all must have been published in 2020).