News from the Walkley Literary Program....
2011 Walkley Book Award Winner!
Russell Skelton, King Brown Country: The betrayal of Papunya, Allen & Unwin
“Why don’t you check out Papunya? It’s the (petrol) sniffing capital of Australia, it’s a Bermuda triangle for taxpayer funds. Nobody in the Northern Territory government gives a rats. The council just tossed out World Vision. People are frightened to talk.”
It was this tip-off, emailed from a trusted source, which set Russell Skelton on a five-year investigation. Papunya in Central Australia had become world famous after an extraordinary period of creative energy from its talented artists. But as Skelton found, the reality on the ground would never attract such glowing publicity.
Skelton spares no-one in his painstaking examination. At the centre of the story is the powerful Anderson clan and the formidable and mercurial figure of Alison Anderson, who went from being town clerk to the Northern Territory’s most outspoken Indigenous member of parliament.
Skelton dissects difficult issues of the use and misuse of community and government funds, and the interaction between the community and the white establishment. He uncovers examples of dysfunction, of financial mismanagement, allegations of corruption, power plays and unspeakable neglect.
He also reveals how the failure of Indigenous policy over many years has betrayed this once secure community.
Russell Skelton is a contributing editor to The Age and was previously its deputy editor, foreign editor and a foreign correspondent. He has received the Grant Hattam Quill award for investigative journalism and a United Nations Association Peace award for his reports on Aboriginal disadvantage.
The Walkley Book Award
The Walkley Book Award celebrates excellence in Australian long-form journalism. The award is open to Australian journalists or writers and entries may encompass subject matter including: true crime, biographies, political analysis, business writing, war reportage, investigative journalism and foreign correspondence. Please find a breakdown of the 34 award categoies here.
Download an entry form and view the terms and conditions here
2012 IMPORTANT DATES
Details coming soon
Walkley Book Award: 2011 China Tour
Shirley Shackleton, winner of the 2010 Walkley Book Award, has returned from a 10 day tour of literary festivals in China to promote her prize-winning memoir The Circle of Silence: A personal testimony before, during and after Balibo (Read more). Along with Australian writers Christos Tsiolkas, Craig Silvey, Jessica Rudd and others, Shirley took part in celebrations for Australian Writers' Week in March in Beijing, as well as appearing in-conversation at the Shanghai and Hong Kong Literary Festivals.
Past winners
2010: Shirley Shackleton, The Circle of Silence: A Personal Testimony Before, During and After Balibo
2009: Graham Freudenberg, Churchill and Australia
2008: Don Watson, American Journeys
2007: Chris Masters, Jonestown
2006: Neil Chenoweth, Packer's Lunch
2005: Bob Connolly, Making Black Harvest
