31/3/08 Inaugural Barbara Jefferis Winner Announced
The Australian Society of Authors is delighted to announce that the winner of the inaugural Barbara Jefferis Award is Rhyll McMaster, with her book Feather Man (Brandl & Schlesinger).

The winner was announced at an award ceremony held at the University of Sydney on Friday 28 March. The evening featured a short talk on Barbara Jefferis by Nadia Wheatley. Rosie Scott presented the judges’ report, and John and Barbara’s daughter Rosalind Hinde presented the cheque. The Award judges were academic Dr Leigh Dale, literary editor Deborah Hope and novelist Rosie Scott.

Press
2/4/08 - Arts Hub
29/3/08 -The Australian
29/3/08 - Sydney Morning Herald

Judges' Report
Download the full Judges' Report here.

Award Ceremony
View images from the ceremony here.

Some reviews of Featherman
Australian Women's Book Review
Brisbane Times
Marion Boyars Publishing
The New Statesman
Radio National

8/3/2008 Barbara Jefferis Shortlist Announced
The Australian Society of Authors is delighted to announce the shortlist for the innaugural Barbara Jefferis Award.

Shortlisted
Michelle de Kretser, The Lost Dog (Allen & Unwin)
Karen Foxlee, The Anatomy of Wings (University of Queensland Press)
Rhyll McMaster, Feather Man (Brandl & Schlesinger)
Geraldine Wooller, The Seamstress (University of Western Australia Press)

Highly Commended
Mireille Juchau, Burning In (Giramondo)
Elizabeth Stead, The Gospel of Gods and Crocodiles (University of Queensland Press)

	Michelle de Kretser, The Lost Dog(Allen & Unwin)
	Karen Foxlee, The Anatomy of Wings (University of Queensland Press)
	Mireille Juchau, Burning In (Giramondo)
	Rhyll McMaster, Feather Man (Brandl & Schlesinger)
	Elizabeth Stead, The Gospel of Gods and Crocodiles (University of Queensland Press)
	Geraldine Wooller, The Seamstress (University of Western Australia Press)

About the Award
The Barbara Jefferis Award is offered annually for “the best novel written by an Australian author that depicts women and girls in a positive way or otherwise empowers the status of women and girls in society”.

Barbara Jefferis was a feminist, a founding member of the Australian Society of Authors, its first female President and, in the words of Thomas Keneally, “a rare being amongst authors, being both a fine writer but also organisationally gifted. She was a professional and internationally published writer long before most of us dreamed of such things”.

The Award is paid from the Barbara Jefferis Literary Fund, which was established by a bequest from Barbara Jefferis’s husband, ABC film critic John Hinde, who died in 2006. The Australian Society of Authors is Trustee of the Fund. In its first year, 2008, the Award is valued at $35,000.

Entries for the 2008 Barbara Jefferis Awards have now closed. Entry forms for the 2009 Award will be available for download from 1 September 2008.