The winners for the 2014 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards have been announced.

The winner for poetry, Jennifer Maiden, has also been named the overall winner for her politically-charged and exquisitely-structured Liquid Nitrogen. The poems in this collection are like verse essays, subjecting the political issues of our time, and the figures who dominate them, to a fierce scrutiny, while allowing the personal aspects of experience to be portrayed in the most delicate and imaginative ways.

For fiction, the winner is Alex Miller for Coal Creek. Readings’ Managing Director Mark Rubbo said of this novel, “Miller constructs great tension in his books without ever feeling predictable. This novel builds to a sobering denouement that is also surprisingly optimistic.”

Henry Reynolds has been named the winner for non-fiction with Forgotten War, a powerful book makes it clear that there can be no reconciliation without acknowledging the wars fought on Australia’s own soil. Our reviewer called the book, “worthy of our most scrupulous attention.”

The young adult winner is Barry Jonsberg with My Life as an Alphabet, a delightful novel about an unusual girl who goes to great lengths to bring love and laughter into the lives of everyone she cares about. Our reviewer said the novel, “completely won me over, just as unusual misfit Candice wins over everyone she meets, even if she has to do it the hard way.”

Multi award-winning playwright Patricia Cornelius has won for drama with Savages. This dynamic Australian play takes a tough look at masculinity and misogyny amongst a pack of ordinary young men. Tim Byrne of Time Our said of the play, “…almost elegiac monologues of regret and reflection … a compelling portrait of fatally flawed masculinity” and you can watch a trailer here.

And finally, Hannah Kent was awarded People’s Choice for her debut novel Burial Rites - in northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnúsdóttir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of two men.

Congratulations to all the winners!