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Culture and the Arts Minister David Templeman today announced the shortlist for the 2018 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards.

The Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards aim to support, develop and recognise excellence in writing.

This year there are four awards:

• The Western Australian Writer’s Fellowship ($60,000), designed to assist a Western Australian writer, of any genre, to develop their writing practice and give them the time to create new work.
• The Premier’s Prize for an Emerging Writer Award ($15,000) for the first published work of prose, poetry or narrative nonfiction, in any genre.
• The Premier’s Prize for Writing for Children Award ($15,000) for a work of prose, poetry or narrative nonfiction written for children (0 to 12 years of age), in any genre.
• The Daisy Utemorrah Award for unpublished Indigenous Junior and Young Adult writing, administered and presented by Magabala Books. ($15,000 and a publishing contract with Magabala Books) for a new unpublished manuscript for a work of junior and young adult fiction, including graphic novels, by an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. 

Other than the Daisy Utemorrah Award, all the awards are only open to Western Australian authors.

Emerging Writer shortlist

• if i tell you Alicia Tuckerman (Pantera Press)
• The Rúin Dervla McTiernan (HarperCollins Publishers)
• The Sky Runs Right Through Us Reneé Pettitt-Schipp (UWA Publishing)
• The Wounded Sinner Gus Henderson (Magabala Books)
• You belong Here Laurie Steed (Margaret River Press) 

Writing for Children shortlist

• Grandpa, Me and Poetry, written by Sally Morgan and illustrated by Craig Smith (Scholastic Australia)
• The Happiness Box, written by Mark Greenwood and illustrated by Andrew McLean (Walker Books Australia)
• The Hole Story, written and illustrated by Kelly Canby (Fremantle Press)
• How to Win a Nobel Prize, co-authored by Barry Marshall and Lorna Hendry, with illustrations by Bernard Caleo (Piccolo Nero, Schwartz Publishing Pty Ltd)
• Puddle Hunters, written by Kirsty Murray and illustrated by Karen Blair (Allen & Unwin) 

The Daisy Utemorrah Award for unpublished Indigenous Junior and Young Adult writing shortlist

• Paul Callaghan, ‘Coincidence’
• Kirli Saunders, ‘Mother Speaks’
• Carl Merrison and Hakea Hustler, ‘Tracks of the Missing’ 

Fellowship shortlist

• A.J. Betts
• Amanda Curtin
• Craig Silvey
• Kylie Howarth
• Madeline Dickie  

The winners of the 2018 Premier’s Book Awards will be announced on July 26, 2019 during the Disrupted Festival of Ideas at the State Library of Western Australia.