Book of the Year Award
The 2023 BOTY shortlist has now been announced, with the winner to be announced as part of the SPN Independent Publishing Conference on 24 November 2023.
Since 2012, SPN has presented an annual award known as the Small Press Network Book of the Year Award (formerly the Most Underrated Book Award). Any book released by an SPN member publisher in the previous calendar year is eligible.
For the 2023 award, judges Penni Russon, Bec Kavanagh and Tierney Khan read through over 100 entries to come up with a shortlist of six titles.
The 2023 award is sponsored by Ingram, Thorpe-Bowker Identifier Services, Book People, The Wheeler Centre, Readings, Avid Reader, Fullers Bookshop and Bookocchino.
The Small Press Network (SPN) is excited to announce the winner of the 2023 Small Press Network Book of the Year Award (BOTY): Against Disappearance: Essays on Memory, an anthology by Liminal and published by Pantera Press. The award was presented at the Wheeler Centre as part of its Next Big Thing series by Meanjin […]
The Winner
Against Disappearance: Essays on Memory
In this collection of new essays from the Liminal & Pantera Press Nonfiction Prize longlist, First Nations writers and writers of colour bend and shift boundaries, query the past and envision new futures. They ask: How do we write or hold our former selves, our ancestries? How does where we come from connect to where we are […]
The Shortlist
Mabu Mabu
The Branded
Paradise (Point of Transmission)
Against Disappearance: Essays on Memory
Losing Face
Our Members Be Unlimited
Sponsored by BookPeople and Ingram. The Small Press Network (SPN) is excited to announce the winner of the 2022 Small Press Network Book of the Year Award (BOTY): Gravidity and Parity by Eleanor Jackson, published by Vagabond Press. The award was presented at the Wheeler Centre as part of its Next Big Thing series by […]
The Winner
Gravidity and Parity
Gravidity and Parity (Vagabond Press) is a poignant and intricate collection of poetry that guides the reader into the journey of motherhood, pulling no punches in how it addresses and details all that is often unsaid or unknown about pregnancy.
The Shortlist
No Document
Friends & Dark Shapes
Hometown Haunts
Permafrost
Gravidity and Parity
Theory of Colours
Sexy Tales of Paleontology
We are excited to announce the winners of the 2021 SPN Book of the Year Award. That’s right, winners, the judges decided to award two BOTY winners this year! They are Echoes (2020) by Shu-Ling Chua and We are Speaking in Code (Brio Books 2020) by Tanya Vavilova. The judges said ‘both titles exhibit beautiful […]
The Winner
Echoes
Echoes [a collection of essays] is a true expression of what it means to (re)connect with one’s culture, blending memoir, cultural commentary and translation with brief vignettes that leave a lasting impact.
We Are Speaking in Code
Exploring themes of family, identity, sexuality and belonging, We Are Speaking in Code is a warm, engaging and thought-provoking collection of essays reflecting the immigrant experience.
The Shortlist
Echoes
We Are Speaking in Code
Almost a Mirror
The Tiniest House of Time
Collisions: A Liminal Anthology
Taking Down Evelyn Tait
The winner of the 2020 Book of the Year is ‘Forgotten Corners: Essays in Search of an Island’s Soul’ by Pete Hay, published by Walleah Press!
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.
The Shortlist
Forgotten Corners: Essays in Search of an Island’s Soul
The Subjects
Cooee Mittigar: A story on Darug Songlines
blur by the
When One Person Dies the Whole World is Over
Lucky Ticket
Nganajungu Yagu
The MUBA 2019 judges praised the submitted books for their range of vibrant and contrasting voices and genres. The 2019 judging panel of Melissa Cranenburgh, Jane Rawson and Jackie Tang (convenor) highlighted the fact that it is often small presses who take risks and the results—evident in this year’s shortlist—are richly rewarding and worthwhile reads.
