As you probably already know, in a recent act of outstanding idiocy, the new Premier of Queensland withdrew funding for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards.

Plenty of people have posted detailed and intelligent responses to this outrage, while I’ve been offline, so I won’t add my indignant restating of their valid critique of his position here.

I’ll just say that the Queensland Literary Awards, a grass-roots response to the canning of the awards, will take place this year. This includes the categories that are dearest to my heart: the emerging author award and the Unaipon Award, both of which, although they won’t come with a well-deserved cheque, WILL include publication by UQP.

Please, if you have a manuscript, demonstrate your commitment to yourself, your work, and the literary arts by entering the award this year.

You can find details on how to enter at the QLA site, which has been established by Matt Condon and Krissy Kneen.

go here: