Published in Overland Issue 218 Autumn 2015 · Writing Nakata Brophy Short Fiction and Poetry Prize for Young Indigenous Writers: Judges’ report Jennifer Mills, Tony Birch and Sally Dalton-Brown Judges: Sally Dalton-Brown, Trinity College (Chair); Tony Birch, University of Melbourne; Jennifer Mills, Overland This year, the second Nakata Brophy Short Fiction and Poetry Prize for Young Indigenous Writers attracted a high calibre of entries. The judges – Jennifer Mills of Overland, Tony Birch, University of Melbourne, and Sally Dalton-Brown, Trinity College – unanimously selected Marika Duczynski’s ‘Backa Bourke’ as the winner. Duczynski’s story stood out for its strong voice and richly textured, energetic prose that knows when to withdraw. ‘Backa Bourke’ is a great example of the way short fiction can transmit deep empathy for its characters and offer readers a sense of a complete world beyond the story. The judges also wished to commend two very strong runners-up: Ellen van Neerven’s ‘Cassettes’ takes a common experience and infuses it, in deceptively simple style, with the resonance of many kinds of loss; Jannali Jones’ ‘Ugly Duckling’ imagines the end of the world through an unlikely love story, and shows a writer willing to take risks. Jennifer Mills Jennifer Mills was Overland fiction editor between 2012 and 2018. Her latest novel, The Airways, is out through Picador. More by Jennifer Mills › Tony Birch Tony Birch is the author of Shadowboxing, Father’s Day, Blood, The Promise and Ghost River. He is currently research fellow in the Moondani Balluk Academic Centre at Victoria University. More by Tony Birch › Sally Dalton-Brown More by Sally Dalton-Brown › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 11 December 202411 December 2024 · Writing The trouble Ken Bolton’s poems make for me, specifically, at the moment Linda Marie Walker These poems doom me to my chair and table and computer. I knew it was all downhill from here, at this age, but it’s been confirmed. My mind remains town-size, hemmed in by pine plantations and kanite walls and flat swampy land and hills called “mountains”. 17 July 202417 July 2024 · Writing “What is it that remains of us now”: witnessing the war on Palestine with Suheir Hammad Dashiell Moore The flame of her poetry scorches the states of exceptions that allow individual and state-sponsored violence to continue, unjustified, and unhistoricised. As we engage with her work, we are reminded that "chronic survival" is not merely an act of enduring but a profound declaration of existence.
