MEDIA EMBARDOED UNTIL: Monday 9 December 2024
The Australian and HarperCollinsPublishers Australia are delighted to announce that the winner of the inaugural The Australian Fiction Prize is Katherine Johnson for her unpublished manuscript A Wild Heart.
A Wild Heart is the story of a remote Tasmanian island, a teenage daughter kept captive by her overprotective father, and a handsome shipwreck survivor who is not who he seems. Against the backdrop of a mysterious death, A Wild Heart is a propulsive and emotional novel of a young women’s perilous attempt to break away from an island she loves, with nature and courage at its heart.
Katherine Johnson is an award-winning Tasmanian novelist and feature writer. Her novels include Pescador’s Wake, The Better Son, Matryoshka and Paris Savages. She has won HarperCollins Varuna Manuscript Development Awards and Tasmanian Literary Awards. Paris Savages was shortlisted in the 2020 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA), and was published in the UK, the US and Italy. The UK edition was named The Times Historical Fiction Book of the Month in July 2020. The Better Son was longlisted in the Australian Indie Book Awards. Katherine has degrees in science and journalism, and holds a PhD in creative writing. Her feature articles have been published in The Conversation, Good Weekend, Island magazine and Forty South. She works part time in alumni and philanthropy communications at the University of Tasmania, and on the Writing Better Judgments program of the National Judicial College of Australia. A Wild Heart was written with the support of a grant from Arts Tasmania.
Katherine Johnson said: ‘I am absolutely thrilled and enormously grateful to receive this award. I’ve been living and breathing this novel for a few years, around part-time work. To know that Min’s story of courage and resilience, as well as the hope of rewilding, will now reach readers means the world. The prize will provide precious writing time and a connection with new readers, which is one of the really lovely things about being a writer. A million thanks to HarperCollins and The Australian for supporting Australian literature, and to Caroline Overington and all of the judges for their considerable time.’
Literary Editor of The Australian Caroline Overington, said: ‘I was enchanted by Katherine’s main character, Min, a girl with a wild spirit, from the first few pages. I could see readers taking her into their hearts, and cheering her on, as she takes tentative steps toward freedom, and a life of one’s own. I adored the descriptions of her home on remote Maria Island, which presents in the manuscript as a precious jewel. Upon finishing Katherine’s book, I went straight to Google, to find out whether you can actually visit (you can, by boat!) and I will carry the characters Katherine has created with me, when I go there.’
Head of Fiction at HarperCollins Australia Catherine Milne, said: ‘We are all absolutely delighted that A Wild Heart is the winner of the inaugural The Australian Fiction Prize. It stood out straightaway as a serious contender; we all loved the evocative, wild setting of Maria Island, the beautiful nature writing, the plot propelled by a mysterious death, and the entwined themes of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, extinction and rewilding. It’s a sweeping, beautiful and emotional novel of the struggle between independence and control, nature, love and courage, which echoes Where the Crawdads Sing, The Last Migration and The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart. It will be a joy to publish and bring to readers everywhere.’
This is the inaugural The Australian Fiction Prize, which annually awards a work of unpublished fiction writing with $20,000 prize money and a $15,000 advance. Building on the legacy of the Vogel Award, The Australian Fiction Prize is open to all Australian writers for an unpublished, book length work of fiction.
Katherine Johnson is available for interview.
For more details and media enquiries please contact: hannah.lynch@harpercollins.com.au