Book of the Year Award 2020
The Small Press Network is honoured to announce the winner of the 2020 Book of the Year Award is Forgotten Corners: Essays in Search of an Island’s Soul by Pete Hay, published by Walleah Press. The Book of Year Award aims to recognise some of the most ground-breaking books being produced by independent publishers today.
The BOTY 2020 judges Melissa Cranenburgh, Jane Rawson and Jackie Tang say of the Award:
The books we chose for the SPN Book of the Year shortlist all show – in their own, utterly unique ways – the extraordinary and never-more-necessary work of small press publishing. Each had a strength of voice, perspective, language and style that really exemplify what independent publishers can do to increase the range, complexity and diversity of Australian literature. And so it was a painfully difficult task to decide on a single winner. With that in mind, please consider that all of our shortlisted titles are remarkable. We congratulate the authors – and publishers – for creating these books. Go buy them. Read them. Tell your friends and family about them.
But, for us, one book truly captured the spirit of this award. Tasmanian poet Pete Hay’s Forgotten Corners: Essays in Search of an Island’s Soul is that thing all readers search for: an unexpected gem. A writer fully engaged with the complexities of their home state, without feeling parochial. A much-loved Tasmanian author who deserves much wider recognition. If there is a theme to this collection of 18 years worth of essays – Hay ponders in the preface – it is an exploration of ‘a certain grain within Tasmanian life.’ A ‘cleavage between those who see the island as raw material awaiting the uncaring inscription of capital… and those whose ways of acting within and understanding the island are driven by a pure, intrinsic love, and are, hence, unavoidably oppositional.’ There is no doubt that such ‘dissident’ thought is at the heart of this collection. But the great delight is Hay’s quiet mastery of the literary essay. Hay is thoughtful. Down-to-earth. Often self-effacing. His streams of self and societal reflection feel clear and refreshing even – or perhaps especially – while pulling the reader through treacherous currents. These essays are beautiful. They will stay with you. So, in this year of disconnection, we feel privileged to have the chance to shine a light on the work of writers and publishers from small presses around Australia. And to hand the inaugural SPN Book of the Year Award to Tasmanian author and poet Pete Hay and publisher Walleah Press.
BOTY is proudly supported by:
The Winner
Forgotten Corners: Essays in Search of an Island’s Soul
Pete Hay is pre-eminent among the guardians of Tasmania’s island’s spirit, his fierce intelligence and compassionate heart resisting those who would ravage, exploit and appropriate its natural beauty, cultural creativity and fraught history for profit and power.
Judges' Report
Tasmanian poet Pete Hay’s Forgotten Corners: Essays in Search of an Island’s Soul is that thing all readers search for: an unexpected gem. A writer fully engaged with the complexities of their home state, without feeling parochial. A much-loved Tasmanian author who deserves much wider recognition. If there is a theme to this collection of 18 years worth of essays – Hay ponders in the preface – it is an exploration of ‘a certain grain within Tasmanian life.’ A ‘cleavage between those who see the island as raw material awaiting the uncaring inscription of capital… and those whose ways of acting within and understanding the island are driven by a pure, intrinsic love, and are, hence, unavoidably oppositional.’ There is no doubt that such ‘dissident’ thought is at the heart of this collection. But the great delight is Hay’s quiet mastery of the literary essay. Hay is thoughtful. Down-to-earth. Often self-effacing. His streams of self and societal reflection feel clear and refreshing even – or perhaps especially – while pulling the reader through treacherous currents. These essays are beautiful. They will stay with you. So, in this year of disconnection, we feel privileged to have the chance to shine a light on the work of writers and publishers from small presses around Australia. And to hand the inaugural SPN Book of the Year Award to Tasmanian author and poet Pete Hay and publisher Walleah Press.
The Shortlist
Forgotten Corners: Essays in Search of an Island’s Soul
Pete Hay is pre-eminent among the guardians of Tasmania’s island’s spirit, his fierce intelligence and compassionate heart resisting those who would ravage, exploit and appropriate its natural beauty, cultural creativity and fraught history for profit and power.
Judges' Report
Tasmanian poet Pete Hay’s Forgotten Corners: Essays in Search of an Island’s Soul is that thing all readers search for: an unexpected gem. A writer fully engaged with the complexities of their home state, without feeling parochial. A much-loved Tasmanian author who deserves much wider recognition. If there is a theme to this collection of 18 years worth of essays – Hay ponders in the preface – it is an exploration of ‘a certain grain within Tasmanian life.’ A ‘cleavage between those who see the island as raw material awaiting the uncaring inscription of capital… and those whose ways of acting within and understanding the island are driven by a pure, intrinsic love, and are, hence, unavoidably oppositional.’ There is no doubt that such ‘dissident’ thought is at the heart of this collection. But the great delight is Hay’s quiet mastery of the literary essay. Hay is thoughtful. Down-to-earth. Often self-effacing. His streams of self and societal reflection feel clear and refreshing even – or perhaps especially – while pulling the reader through treacherous currents. These essays are beautiful. They will stay with you. So, in this year of disconnection, we feel privileged to have the chance to shine a light on the work of writers and publishers from small presses around Australia. And to hand the inaugural SPN Book of the Year Award to Tasmanian author and poet Pete Hay and publisher Walleah Press.
The Subjects
He is sure he and the others are part of an experiment. But he doesn’t know who’s running it or what they are trying to prove. And he has no idea what the next seven months are going to do to him…
Cooee Mittigar: A story on Darug Songlines
In this stunning picture book, Darug creators Jasmine Seymour and Leanne Mulgo Watson tell a story on Darug Songlines, introducing children and adults-alike to Darug Nura (Country) and language.
blur by the
blur by the is a yearning for freedom from grief, memory, and—ultimately—from definition.
When One Person Dies the Whole World is Over
A record of a year of a life, ‘When One Person Dies The Whole World Is Over’ is an attempt to pin down time, to capture the most beautiful and fleeting moments that we tend to rush past.
Lucky Ticket
A highly original collection of stories by a talented young writer.
Nganajungu Yagu
“‘Nganajungu Yagu’ was inspired by Mother’s letters, her life and the love she instilled in me for my people and my culture.”
Judges
Mel Cranenburgh
Melissa Cranenburgh is a writer, broadcaster, editor and educator. She spent more than a decade in senior editing roles, including associate editor and acting editor of The Big Issue, and co-editor of the magazine’s annual fiction edition. She now teaches in RMIT’s Professional Writing and Editing diploma, and hosts Triple R’s flagship weekly book show, Backstory.
Jackie Tang
Jackie Tang is a freelance writer and editor. She has reviewed books for Triple R, Kill Your Darlings and Books+Publishing, where she was previously editor-in-chief. She currently works as the digital marketing manager at Melbourne bookseller Readings.
Jane Rawson
Jane Rawson has written two novels – A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists (which won the Most Underrated Book Award in 2014) and From the Wreck, both published by Transit Lounge – and a novella, Formaldehyde (Seizure). She is the co-author of The Handbook: Surviving and Living with Climate Change (Transit Lounge). Her short fiction and essays are in Sleepers, Overland, Tincture, Seizure, Griffith Review, Meanjin and Review of Australian Fiction.