The Stella Prize longlist for 2020 has just been announced. As ever, it’s a very mixed bag, featuring novels, non-fiction and short story collections.
- Lucky Ticket by Joey Bui * (short stories)
- Songspirals: Sharing Women’s Wisdom of Country Through Songlines by Gay’wu Group of Women* (non-fiction about Aboriginal songlines)
- The House of Youssef by Yumna Kassab* (short stories)
- See What You Made Me Do by Jess Hill (non-fiction about domestic abuse)
- Diving into Glass by Caro Llewellyn (non-fiction about multiple sclerosis)
- When One Person Dies the World is Over by Mandy Ord* (graphic novel)
- There was Still Love by Favel Parrett** (novel)
- Here until August by Josephine Rowe*** (short stories)
- This is How We Change the Ending*** by Vikki Wakefield (young adult)
- The Yield by Tara June Winch (novel)
- The Weekend by Charlotte Wood (novel)
- The Paper Emperors by Sally Young* (non-fiction about Australian newspapers)
I have only read one (The Weekend by Charlotte Wood) and have two on my TBR (There Was Still Love by Favel Parett and The Yield by Tara June Winch) — most of the others are completely new to me.
The shortlist will be announced on 6 March and the winner named on 8 April. Only books published by Australian women between 1 January 2019 and 31 December 2019 are eligible for the $50,000 prize.
* Available in the UK as a Kindle edition **Due to be released in UK on 20 Feb in hardcover and Kindle formats ***Available in the UK as a paperback
Reading Matters 
As I’ve said elsewhere, I haven’t heard of most of these, and by the sound of the ones you’ve described, I don’t think I want to!
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LOL. I will probably wait for the shortlist announcement before deciding whether to read anything other than the stuff already on my TBR.
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Yes, good plan:)
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I’ll be really interested to see what you think of The Yield by Tara June Winch. It seemed to really divide opinion on the “Books on the Go” podcast I listened to recently but I am quite drawn to the description of the poetic prose by the contributors.
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I’ve just read her earlier novel Swallow the Air, which I was very impressed by (review coming soon) so will look forward to this latest one.
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I’ve read and loved the Parrett. The writing was just as beautiful as I remembered from reading When the Night Comes In.
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That’s good to know. I, too, loved When the Night Comes In.
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The one you’ve read and the two you have on your TBR are the 3 that I am most keen to read! I bought There Was Still Love recently too so at least I get to read that one. These books are never too easy to access in Canada and sometimes, only sometimes our public library will bring them in (I usually put in the purchase request).
I have to go and check out the other ones now….
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How can the judges choose just one when they are evaluating such mixed genres?
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Exactly like me – have only read one, the same as you – and have two right now on the TBR – same ones as you. There are others that interest me. Of course the Rowe, because I’ve read and liked her before. The Ord has tempted me a few times, but I’m not a great reader of graphic novels being a more textual person. I do liked seeing three short story collections there.
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