The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards shortlist for 2016 has just been announced.

The winners of the five award categories – fiction, non-fiction, drama, poetry and writing for young adults – each receive a prize of $25,000, and go on to contest the Victorian Prize for Literature.

PRIZE FOR FICTION

• Fever of Animals by Miles Allinson
• The Other Side of the World by Stephanie Bishop
• Clade by James Bradley
• Forever Young by Steven Carroll
• The World Without Us by Mireille Juchau
• The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood

Highly commended: Six Bedrooms by Tegan Bennett Daylight, The Mothers by Rod Jones and Black Rock White City by A.S. Patrić

PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION

• Modern Love: The Lives of John and Sunday Reed by Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan
• Thea Astley: Inventing Her Own Weather by Karen Lamb
• Australia’s Second Chance by George Megalogenis
• Second Half First by Drusilla Modjeska
• Something for the Pain by Gerald Murnane
• Mannix by Brenda Niall

Highly commended: Good Muslim Boy by Osamah Sami and Small Acts of Disappearance by Fiona Wright

PRIZE FOR DRAMA

• Mortido by Angela Betzien
• Broken by Mary Anne Butler
• SHIT by Patricia Cornelius

Highly commended: I am a Miracle by Declan Greene

PRIZE FOR POETRY

• The Guardians by Lucy Dougan
• Crankhandle by Alan Loney
• The Subject of Feeling by Peter Rose

Highly commended: Happiness by Martin Harrison

PRIZE FOR WRITING FOR YOUNG ADULTS

• Sister Heart by Sally Morgan
• A Single Stone by Meg McKinlay
• Welcome to Orphancorp by Marlee Jane Ward

Highly commended: Illuminae by Aimee Kaufman and Jay Kristoff and Becoming Kirrali Lewis by Jane Harrison

The public are encouraged to participate in the Awards by voting for their favorite shortlisted work. The winner of the $2,000 People’s Choice Award will be named alongside the main category winners on Thursday 28 January 2016. To vote for the People’s Choice Award, please visit the Wheeler Centre website.

The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards include two further Awards: the Unpublished Manuscript Award, which is presented as part of the Emerging Writers’ Festival in May each year, and the biennial Award for Indigenous Writing, which will be announced in September 2016. Find out more here.