Chris Davis
27 October 2014: The University of Canberra has made waves in the Australian literary world after an associate professor of writing and a recent graduate took out awards in this year's Western Australia Premier's Book Awards.
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UC associate professor Paul Hetherington wins WA Premier's Book Award for his latest book of poetry. Photo: Michelle McAulay |
Head of the University of Canberra's International Poetry Studies Institute Paul Hetherington won the $10,000 Poetry Book Award for his collection, Six Different Windows, awarded to the best book of poetry published in Australia in 2013.
University of Canberra alumni Alyssa Brugman also won $10,000 by taking home the Young Adult Award for her PhD work and novel, Alex As Well.
Dr Hetherington said it was a "real honour" for his work to be selected as the winner among many other distinguished poetry books published in Australia last year.
"It feels wonderful and I'm humbled by it. It's just lovely to get that recognition for work that I've been doing all my life," Dr Hetherington said of his eighth poetry collection.
Six Different Windows is split into six different sections. Its poems explore a variety of subjects, including narratives of childhood, set in different places and times.
"The book provides perspectives on a range of issues related to identity," he said. "It reflects on art, on our connection to autobiographical memory and history, on the nature of intimacy, and on the significance of mythological stories and ideas."
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UC Alumni Alyssa Brugman's novel Alex As Well took out the Young Adult Award. Photo: Supplied |
It's been a busy year for Dr Hetherington, who recently won an $18,000 grant from the Literature Section of the Australia Council for the Arts for a residency at the BR Whiting Studio in Rome next year.
Dr Brugman, who just completed her PhD in communication at the University, said she was "happy and delighted" to win and was particularly impressed to receive the award from WA Premier Colin Barnett.
Alex As Well focuses on the character of Alex who has been raised as a boy, but as an adolescent decides to identify as female.
Dr Brugman, who has published 12 novels, said her PhD research through the University has helped her writing career.
"I have just finished the first draft of a new novel and submitted it to my publisher. If they publish it, it will be my thirteenth novel. I am a much more efficient writer having done the PhD," she said.
Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan took out the top Premier's Prize for his novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North.
