The Stella Prize is an Australian annual
literary award
A literary award or literary prize is an award presented in recognition of a particularly lauded Literature, literary piece or body of work. It is normally presented to an author. Organizations
Most literary awards come with a corresponding award c ...
established in 2013 for writing by Australian women in all genres, worth $50,000. It was originally proposed by Australian women writers and publishers in 2011, modelled on the UK's
Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize for Fiction).
The award derives its name from the author
Miles Franklin
Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin (14 October 187919 September 1954), known as Miles Franklin, was an Australian writer and feminist who is best known for her novel ''My Brilliant Career'', published by Blackwoods of Edinburgh in 1901. While s ...
, whose full name was "Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin."
It was established by a group of 11 Australian women writers, editors, publishers and booksellers who became concerned about the poor representation of books by women in Australia's top literary prize, the
Miles Franklin Award
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the Will (law), will of Miles Franklin ...
.
"After a rapid acceleration in women's rights in the '70s and '80s, things have started to go backwards,"
Sophie Cunningham said in a keynote address at the 2011
Melbourne Writers' Festival. "Women continue to be marginalised in Australian culture and the arts sector – which likes to pride itself on its liberal values – is, in fact, complacent. Women are much less likely to win literary awards, to write reviews of books, or have their books reviewed. This, despite the fact they write about half the books published."
Some commentators, such as Erin Handley writing in ''
The Age
''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...
'', have said that fiction and non-fiction are different genres that should be judged separately, highlighting that this is an issue for the Stella Prize. But this is rejected by Dr.
Kerryn Goldsworthy, the chair of the Stella judging panel, who stated that comparing fiction and non-fiction is "no harder than comparing books in general," and that "excellence is achievable in any form."
The 2021 Stella Prize guidelines opened entries to books by non-binary as well as women writers.
Award honorees
2013 to 2019
2020 to 2025
See also
*
List of literary awards honoring women
*
Sophie Cunningham
References
External links
Stella Prize website
{{Authority control
Awards established in 2013
2013 establishments in Australia
Literary awards honoring women
Australian fiction awards
21st-century literary awards
English-language literary awards