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ACT defers proposed changes to 2014 ACT Book of the Year eligibility

ACT minister for the arts Joy Burch has announced that proposed changes to the ACT Book of the Year Award will be deferred while a review of the prize is undertaken.

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, Burch said in June that eligibility guidelines for the award were being changed because of ‘funding priorities’. The proposed changes would have excluded entries from authors living in the Canberra region but outside the ACT, such as Omar Musa, who was born in Queanbean, close to Canberra but located in NSW.

In a statement on 28 July, Burch said the award ‘could be better promoted’. ‘I am interested in hearing ideas about how to build a real sense of excitement and momentum between announcing the shortlist and awarding the prize to the winner,’ she said, adding that some ideas already proposed included ‘a popular vote for a “People’s Award” alongside the official winner, promoting the shortlisted books through ACT Libraries, and producing reading notes on the books for use by book clubs’.

Burch said these ideas would be considered as part of ‘the regular review of the ACT’s arts policy currently being undertaken by artsACT’.

‘While this review is underway, I have also decided to defer changes that were due to come into effect for this year’s prize, limiting eligibility to ACT residents,’ she said, adding that ‘in the past fifteen years, the ACT Book of the Year has only been won once by a non-resident, and nominations from regional writers are rare’.

‘Artists from the immediate region make a valuable contribution to the Canberra arts sector, and have an emotional connection to it. These issues, alongside the standard of nominations we receive for the 2014 prize, will be considered as we look at ways to improve the award in future years.’

The $10,000 ACT Book of the Year award is presented annually to a book of nonfiction, fiction or poetry by ‘authors living in the ACT or those who can demonstrate a strong connection to the ACT’.

 

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Category: Local news