The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards shortlist for 2017 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

• Between a Wolf and a Dog by Georgia Blain
• The Healing Party by Micheline Lee
• Wood Green by Sean Rabin
• Waiting by Philip Salom
• The Rules of Backyard Cricket by Jock Serong
• The Love of a Bad Man by Laura Elizabeth Woollett

Highly commended: An Isolated Incident by Emily McGuire, Our Magic Hour by Jennifer Down and After the Carnage by Tara June Winch

PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION

• Songs of a War Boy by Deng Adut with Ben Mckelvey
• The Hate Race by Maxine Beneba Clarke
• The Killing Season Uncut by Sarah Ferguson with Patricia Drum
• Offshore: Behind the wire on Manus and Nauru by Madeline Gleeson
• Position Doubtful by Kim Mahood
• The Fighter by Arnold Zable

PRIZE FOR DRAMA

• Girl Shut Your Mouth by Gita Bezard
• Trigger Warning by Zoë Coombs Marr
• The Drover’s Wife by Leah Purcell

PRIZE FOR POETRY

• Carrying the World by Maxine Beneba Clarke
• Painting Red Orchids by Eileen Chong
• Bull Days by Tina Giannoukos

PRIZE FOR WRITING FOR YOUNG ADULTS

• When Michael Met Mina by Randa Abdel-Fattah
• The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon
• The Other Side of Summer by Emily Gale

Highly commended: Freedom Swimmer by Wai Chim and Frankie by Shivaun Plozza

The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards include two further awards: the Unpublished Manuscript Award and the biennial Award for Indigenous Writing. The 2016 Unpublished Manuscript Award was won by Melanie Cheng for Australia Day, while Tony Birch’s Ghost River won the 2016 Award for Indigenous Writing. For the first time this year, these two additional awards will both join consideration with the other five category winners for the Victorian Prize for Literature.

The public are also encouraged to participate in the awards by voting their favourite work on the shortlist. The winner of the People’s Choice Award will be named alongside the general category winners, and will receive $2,000.

Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on 31 January 2016. Please visit the Wheeler Centre website for more information.