Deakin NonFiction Prize – winner
The winner of this year’s Deakin Nonfiction Prize is Carly Stone – congratulations!There was a full program of readings and the final announcement – check out this video link https://youtu.be/J-wFBw23Jpc
Verandah editors Madison Pawle (V36) and Melina Bunting (V34) were part of the team that chose the shortlist from 160 entries, along with members of Voiceworks Editorial committee. Deakin also had two interns working on the prize!
There was a Q&A session for shortlisted writers, and Deakin’s shortlisted alumnus Suri Matondkar commented that ‘it was absolutely lovely, everyone was so kind, supportive and approachable and I feel so lucky to have had access to something like that.’Suri went on to say:
The biggest takeaway was that all the judges agreed that good writing takes time and we can’t always control how much time. It’s instinctive to rush to make something happen because we managed to get this opportunity and there’s this pressure to succeed right now because the iron’s hot, but as Lur said, ‘the iron can always be reheated’ and that was something I think we all needed to hear.Another really great piece of advice was not to think of the marketability of a piece of writing before submitting it to something like a writing contest, because oftentimes the committees are just looking for good writing, not necessarily writing that will sell and that was a great reminder not to reject yourself, or get in your own way with submitting something.