The Western Australian Premier's Book Awards is an annual book award provided by the

Government of Western Australia The Government of Western Australia, formally referred to as His Majesty's Government of Western Australia, is the Australian state democratic administrative authority of Western Australia. It is also commonly referred to as the WA Government o ...

, and managed by the

State Library of Western Australia The State Library of Western Australia is a research, education, reference and public lending library located in the Perth Cultural Centre in Perth, Western Australia. It is a portfolio agency of the Western Australia Department of Culture and t ...

History and format

Annual literary awards were inaugurated by the Western Australian Government in 1982 to honour and celebrate the literary achievements of Western Australian writers. Until 1990 the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards were called the WA Week Literary Awards. The title of the award refers to the year of publication, rather than the year in which the awards were announced e.g.the 2011 awards for works published that year were announced in 2012 The categories included poetry, non-fiction, fiction, Western Australian history, children's book, YA fiction, scripts and digital narrative. There was also a Premier's Prize, which was awarded to an overall winner. The

Barnett Barnett is both a surname and a masculine given name. Notable people with the name include: Surname Barnett is an Anglo-Saxon and Old French surname that came after the Norman Invasion.The original Anglo-Saxon spelling is baernet which means'the ...

government downgraded the awards from an annual event to a biennial one much to the disappointment of the WA arts sector. The McGowan government reinstated the annual award format in 2018. Currently there are four categories – the Western Australian Writer's Fellowship (valued at $60,000), the Premier's Prize for Writing for Children ($15,000), the Premier's Prize for an Emerging Writer ($15,000) and the Daisy Utemorrah Award for Indigenous Authors ($15,000 and publishing contract with

Magabala Books Magabala Books is an Indigenous publishing house based in Broome, Western Australia. It started in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The name ''Magabala'' is a Yawuru, Karrajari and Nyulnyul word for the bush banana. In 1990, Magabala Books be ...

). There have been calls for the awards to be restored to their previous levels as there are currently no categories for established poets, nor fiction and non-fiction writers.

Honorees

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

References

External links

* {{Portal, Children and Young Adult Literature __FORCETOC__ Australian literary awards Australian non-fiction book awards Western Australian literature Australian history awards