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Friday, 9 April 2010

Acclaimed poet Emily Ballou has been shortlisted for the 2010 NSW Premier's Literary Award for her book, The Darwin Poems .

Ballou won the Wesley Michael Wright Prize for Poetry earlier this year and has been shortlisted and highly commended for a number of other poetry awards. Published by UWA Publishing, The Darwin Poems is Ballou's sensitive and beautifully imagined verse-portrait of Charles Darwin's life.

With microscopic attention to detail, Ballou breathes a life force back into the Darwin fossil.

Judges for the Kenneth Slessor Prize reported that The Darwin Poems is an impressive and substantial book.

"Each poem is poised, well-judged and stands alone; each is sure in line, phrase and image, and has a poetic and human resonance beyond the subject matter," the report concluded.

Director at UWA Publishing, Terri-ann White said she is proud of the high quality of Ballou's work and congratulated her on the shortlisting.

Named in honour of the distinguished Australian journalist, war correspondent and poet, The Kenneth Slessor Prize is worth $30,000.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Poet, screenwriter and novelist Emily Ballou was was the 1996 recipient of the Australian Film Commission's New Screenwriters Scheme for her first feature screenplay, Sadie X-Ray. In 1997, she was awarded the Judith Wright Prize for Poetry for her poem, Enter and won the 2009 Wesley Michael Wright Prize for Poetry for her collection - The Darwin Poems. She worked with Gillian Armstrong adapting Helen Hodgman's Waiting for Matindi for the screen, and wrote the short film Mittens, which was Fox Searchlight's 2004 contender for the Academy Awards. Her first novel, Father Lands, set during the desegregation of the school system in the United States, was published in 2002 and is currently being adapted into a film. Emily was named one of The Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists of 2003.

Media references

Sylvia Defendi (UWA Publishing)    61 8  6488 6804  /  0417 967 415
Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)    61 8  6488 5563  /  0432 637 716

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