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Most Underrated Book Award 2014 shortlist announced

The Small Press Network (SPN) has announced the shortlist for this year’s Most Underrated Book Award (MUBA).

The shortlisted titles are:

  • Gardens of Fire (Robert Kenny, UWA Publishing)
  • A Wrong Turn at The Office of Unmade Lists (Jane Rawson, Transit Lounge)
  • Holy Bible (Vanessa Russell, Sleepers Publishing).

 

The judges of this year’s prize include Books Plus bookseller Jenny Barry, Kinokuniya book buyer Helene Byfield and Fictioners.net blogger Nick Hudson.

‘This year we were presented with a wide range of entries across all genres,’ said SPN board member and Readings book buyer Martin Shaw. ‘We hear a lot about the top end of town in the book industry: your Penguin Random Houses or Hachettes invariably inhabit a good proportion of our bestseller and awards lists. But equally fine work is also being done at a much smaller scale, often by publishing houses with as little as one or two staff, and with none of the sales and marketing clout of the majors. It’s to acknowledge their work that the MUBA prize came into being.’

The winner will be announced on 13 November at a presentation as part of the SPN Independent Publishing Conference in Sydney.

The MUBA aims to ‘shine a light on some of the outstanding titles that are released by small and independent Australian publishers that, for whatever reason, did not receive their fair dues when first released’. Last year, Merlinda Bobis won the award for Fish-Hair Woman (Spinifex Press).

For more information about the MUBA, visit the SPN website here.

 

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Category: Local news