Commonwealth Writer's Prize 2010

In 2007 I had the privilege of attending Varuna's Masterclass Residency, where I met four other wonderful writers. We were selected out of close to four hundred other novelists across Australia. So for us four it was  a crapshoot as to who we'd meet, and furthermore who we'd nurture on-going relationships with. For me all the writers were amazing people; they were talented, friendly, and lovely to spend the evenings with.

One of those writers has turned out to be a dear friend of mine, Kirsten Reed of Brisbane. Maybe it was a bond formed by our North American upbringings and our shift to Australia. Who knows. We decided to exchange work here and there over email, after all I was in Melbourne and she was in Brisbane. Through our correspondence I was privileged to read her novel The Ice Age. Over the course of a late night, I read the manuscript in one large gulp. It's a slip of a thing, not as long as a more 'conventional novel' but it pacts an emotional tale of a young girl hitching her way across America with an older man she loves and fantasizes about him being a vampire. It read like creative non-fiction because of the protagonist's utterly believability.

It was soon after that Text Publishing recognized the novel's beauty and published it. Now I'm proud to announce that Ms K Reed made the short-list for First Book in the South Pacific Region of the 2010 Commonwealth Writer's Prize! A hearty congratulations.

For a complete Commonwealth Writer's Prize short-list go here.