Scott-Patrick Mitchell’s book Clean has made the short-list for the 2023 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards.
The OUTinPerth contributor’s debut poetry collection has earned high praise since it was released by local publishing company Upswell in 2022. The long-list of nominations for the award was announced last year, but now it has been culled down ahead of the winner’s announcement in February.
Clean is one of three books nominated in the poetry section of the awards alongside Simon Tedeschi’s Fugitive, which is also published by Upswell, and Gavin Yuan Gao’s At the Alter of Touch. The poetry section of the awards was judged by Eleanor Jackson, Maria Takolander and Adolfo Aranjuez.
Local publisher Upswell will also be celebrating alongside the poetry works by Mitchell and Tedeschi, another of their books has also made the shortlist. Sally Olds’ People who Lunch: Essays on Work, Leisure and Loose Living is also nominated in the Non-Fiction category.
Here’s what the judges had to say about Clean.
“Visceral but compassionate, Clean captures the wild intensity of a life addled in drugs, tracing the journey from addiction to recovery. There is an urgency to its imagery and voice, channeling not only the nervy tension surrounding this taboo issue, but also the dislocation wrought by the loss of home and the disorientation of altered mental states: substances, sleeplessness, the elation of queer desire. That Scott-Patrick Mitchell has mastered both performance and page is evident in their command of wordplay and double entendre, enjambment and rhythm. Searing, sometimes tender and unforgettable, this empathetic collection brings to light that which society has consigned to the shadows.”
The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards were established in 1985 by Premier John Cain to mark the centenary of the births of Vance and Nettie Palmer and to honour and reward literary achievement by Australian writers.
Now in their 38th year, the Awards have received bipartisan support since their inception. In 2023, the Awards have a total prize pool of $267,000.
The winners of the main suite of awards – the prizes for Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Writing for Young Adults, and Indigenous Writing – each receive $25,000. The winners of the six main suite categories go on to contest the overall Victorian Prize for Literature, worth an additional $100,000. This is the single most valuable literary award in the country.
The winners will be announced on Thursday 2nd February 2023.
OIP Staff
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