Book of the Year Award 2023
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 editor Esther Anatolitis.
Against Disappearance: Essays on Memory is one of two Pantera Press books shortlisted for the SPN BOTY, and we extend our congratulations to this publisher for its continued commitment to publishing provoking, necessary, and exciting titles.
Publishing Director Lex Hirst of Pantera Press said: ‘A big thanks to this year’s judges for awarding Against Disappearance, our partnership with the LIMINAL magazine team, in the SPN Book of the Year, as well as for shortlisting Jo Riccioni’s The Branded. Both books represent what we care about most at Pantera Press, which is publishing books that spark conversation, imagination and change, and we’re very proud to have brought them to readers. Leah Jing McIntosh and Adolfo Aranjuez are the exceptional editorial duo responsible for Against Disappearance. At LIMINAL they publish some of the most thought-provoking, exciting and necessary writing across this nation, and this collection of essays drawn from the LIMINAL and Pantera Press Nonfiction Prize holds truly ground-breaking and vital pieces that speak so directly to the current moment in time, and the fight against disappearance being enacted by so many. A huge congratulations to the many contributors to the collection, and massive thanks to the Small Press Network for all the work they do to support independent and small press publishing in Australia.’
The editors of Against Disappearance: Essays on Memory, Leah Jing McIntosh and Adolfo Aranjuez, provided a joint statement: ‘It’s an honour not just for Liminal, but for every author included in this collection—and each culture, people, history and home, remembered or erased, represented by each—to be recognised by an award such as this. In a landscape often hostile to critical thought and to asking the tough questions, being awarded Book of the Year is an acknowledgment that the work we all do, what we contribute to the collective fight against societal forgetting, is worthy.’
A special thanks to the sponsors of BOTY: Ingram, Thorpe-Bowker Identifier Services, Book People, The Wheeler Centre, Readings, Avid Reader, Fullers Bookshop and Bookoccino. Thanks to the sponsors’ generosity, the authors and editors of Against Disappearance: Essays on Memory will jointly receive a cash prize of $1000, and publisher Pantera Press will forward a $1000 printing credit from Ingram to Liminal. Additionally, the authors of all five Shortlisted titles – Losing Face by George Haddad, The Branded by Jo Riccioni, Paradise (point of transmission) by Andrew Sutherland, Mabu Mabu by Nornie Bero, and Our Members Be Unlimited by Sam Wallman – will each receive a cash prize of $500.
Meet the judges of the 2023 Book of the Year Award here.
The 2023 award is sponsored by:
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 […]
Judges' Report
The Shortlist
Mabu Mabu
In Mabu Mabu, charismatic First Nations chef Nornie Bero champions the tastes of native flavours in everyday cooking by unlocking the secrets of Australian herbs, spices, vegetables and fruits. Nornie grew up on the island of Mer in the Torres Strait and while her wanderlust would take her to Italian and Japanese kitchens in Melbourne and […]
Judges' Report
The Branded
Isfalk is divided into two classes: the Branded, who are vulnerable to disease, and the Pure, who are bigger, stronger and immune. Orphaned twins Nara and Osha are sequestered in the citadel, where their unbranded skin entitles them to a life of privilege, as precious breeding stock. Nara itches to escape her confines and return […]
Judges' Report
Paradise (Point of Transmission)
This brilliant debut collection examines a ‘haunted’ Queer and HIV-positive identity. It follows an HIV diagnosis and a departure from Singapore as the poet moves from being secretive about his HIV status, towards living a more public life, in which living openly with HIV is characterised by the queer longing toward both resilience and transformation.
Judges' Report
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 […]
Judges' Report
Losing Face
Joey is young, indifferent. He’s drifting around Western Sydney unaware that his passivity is leading him astray. And then one day he is involved in a violent crime, one that threatens to upend his life entirely. Elaine, his grandmother, is a proud Lebanese woman with problems of her own. When Joey is arrested, she is […]
Judges' Report
For a novel about violence, Losing Face is surprisingly tender. George Haddad is a writer with a talent for voice and place, vividly capturing the intensity of Western Sydney. Haddad uses layered intergenerational storytelling to demonstrate the complexity with which lives intertwine and unravel around a violent crime. He avoids delivering neat and easy answers but instead lingers in places that we usually want to look away from. But we don’t look away; Haddad has achieved a page-turning urgency that makes this a compelling reading experience.
Our Members Be Unlimited
In our current political climate, people are looking for answers — and alternatives. The promise of unions is that their ‘members be unlimited’: that they don’t belong to the rich, the powerful, or special interests, but to all workers. How did the idea of unionism arise? Where has it flourished? And what are its challenges […]
Judges' Report
Our Members Be Unlimited by Sam Wallman is an immense achievement. Both a history of the union moment and a personal memoir of Wallman’s own experience of working as a picker at an Amazon warehouse, the personal is political and the political is intensely felt and personal. The graphic medium allows for dense information to be told in an accessible way, while images of the body speak directly to the body of the reader, we recognise the burden of exploitation as an embodied reality. Timely, but also a book that will remain relevant, sadly, for a long time, this important book could play a role in helping younger generations engage with what it means to collectivise and unionise and make informed choices about navigating a lifetime of labour; this book should be considered for secondary curriculums.
Judges
Penni Russon
Penni Russon is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of a number of books for children and teenagers, including Only Ever Always (Delacorte Press), The Endsister (Allen & Unwin) and the Undine trilogy (Greenwillow Books). She’s a senior lecturer in writing at Monash University.
Bec Kavanagh
Bec Kavanagh is a writer, literary critic and academic. She has had fiction and non-fiction published in a variety of publications including Meanjin, Overland, The Big Issue and The Guardian. Bec is the Youth Programming Manager at the Wheeler Centre and a sessional tutor at LaTrobe University.
Tierney Khan
Tierney Khan is a Naarm based writer who, since winning the State Championship of the Plain English Speaking Award (PESA) in 2020, has facilitated and hosted numerous events with The Wheeler Centre. Most recently she was in conversation with feminist icon Wendy McCarthy, as well as guest programmed an event called ‘Something Old, Something New’ […]