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Monday, 22 February 2010

Ross Gibson's The Summer Exercises and Martin Harrison's collection of poetry, Wild Bees , have been shortlisted for this year's Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature.

Gibson, who published his book with UWA Publishing in 2008, was shortlisted for the Innovation Award ($10,000) for a book that departed from the conventional use of genre and blended elements of fiction, non-fiction and photography.

Harrison was shortlisted for the John Bray Poetry Award ($15,000) for his 2008 collection of new and selected poems.

Director of UWA Publishing Professor Terri-ann White said both titles had been exceptional in their genres.

"We are thrilled with the news of their shortlisting and wish them all the best in the lead-up to the winner's announcement," Professor White said.

Nominations for the Adelaide awards were up by almost 100 this year, with winners to be announced on February 28 in Adelaide as part of Writers' Week.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Ross Gibson makes books, films and audiovisual installations, working in cultural institutions such as the Museum of Sydney and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.  His books include: The Diminishing Paradise (1984); South of the West (1992); The Bond Store Tales (1996); Exchanges (1996) and Seven Versions of an Australian Badland (2002).  He is currently Professor of Contemporary Arts at Sydney College of the Arts.

Martin Harrison is a poet and essayist and author of seven books of poetry.  He has written extensively as a reviewer and critic, with articles appearing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Times Literary Supplement and Australian Book Review. His poems have been published in many Australian magazines and internationally in journals including Poetry (Chicago), Poetry International and the London Review of Books .  He was awarded an Australia Council Established Writers Fellowship 2003-2004 and won the Wesley Michel Wright prize for poetry in 2002.  He currently directs the Writing and Cultural Studies at University of Technology Sydney.

Media references

Sylvia Defendi (UWA Publishing)  (+61 8)  6488 6804  /  (+61 4) 17 967 415
Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 5563  /  (+61 4) 32 637 716

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