Linda Cuttriss’s story At Screw Creek will be published in the next issue of the Post. By Catherine Watson
BASS Coast writer Linda Cuttriss has won the 2020 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with At Screw Creek, part true detective story, part local history, part family history.
The judges commented that this was local history at its best – not just a succession of dates and events but an engaging story with a narrative drive and a search for understanding.
Second prize has gone to Drouin writer Jeannie Haughton for Who Speaks for the Trees and Creeks? Part memoir, part polemic, this is a powerful piece of writing, concluding with an urgent call to action and a plea not to give in to despair.
Equal third prize went to Lucinda Bain of Eltham for Paper Thin and Max Hayward of North Melbourne for Sometimes Nothing Can Happen But Fire.
BASS Coast writer Linda Cuttriss has won the 2020 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with At Screw Creek, part true detective story, part local history, part family history.
The judges commented that this was local history at its best – not just a succession of dates and events but an engaging story with a narrative drive and a search for understanding.
Second prize has gone to Drouin writer Jeannie Haughton for Who Speaks for the Trees and Creeks? Part memoir, part polemic, this is a powerful piece of writing, concluding with an urgent call to action and a plea not to give in to despair.
Equal third prize went to Lucinda Bain of Eltham for Paper Thin and Max Hayward of North Melbourne for Sometimes Nothing Can Happen But Fire.
There were also four Highly Commended awards:
Karen Bateman, of Inverloch for No Place Like Home;
Jillian Durance, of Moyarra, for Nothing We Liked Better;
Lauren Burns, of Inverloch, for Cape Connection;
and Fiona Power, of Glen Iris, for On the Shore of the Wide World.
The Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction is one of the richest non-fiction prizes in Australia, with $10,000 in prize money, thanks to sponsor Phyllis Papps.
This year’s competition was brought forward to provide an outlet for housebound writers during the COVID lockdowns.
Ms Papps said she was thrilled with the number of entries and the quality of the writing. A week before the deadline, she had only received seven entries and was starting to get worried – but entries came with a rush in the last few days to pass last year’s count of 42.
Judges Geoff Ellis, Anne Heath Mennell and Catherine Watson were impressed by the standard of entries and the breadth of topics. Our winners tackled some meaty issues and topics – climate change, the bush fires, COVID – in an engaging manner.
The competition is open to writers with a strong Gippsland connection. In the second year of the prize, we had a wider geographic range – Bass Coast, Baw Baw, La Trobe, East Gippsland, South Gippsland – and a wider age range of entrants. While four of the winners and commended writers could be described as "women of mature years", we also have two youngish women and one youngish man among them.
Unfortunately, the gender divide remains: only eight of the 44 entrants are male, so it’s not too surprising that only one made it to the winners’ podium.
With the prize now well established on the local writing scene, the team behind the prize will seek sponsorship and hope to run it again in 2021.
The Bass Coast Post will publish the winning entries starting in our next issue.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS
First
Linda Cuttriss: At Screw Creek
Local history at its best – not just a succession of dates and events but merged with a family history, a detective story and a search for understanding. At 9000 words, it has plenty of heft but it’s engaging and the story moves along. The judges were impressed by the way she sought understanding of the pre-European history of the land that five generations of her family have called home.
Second
Jeannie Haughton Who Speaks for the Trees and Creeks? or RUN If You Hear The Word Peri Urban
The author mourns the loss of a beloved avenue of old trees and embarks on an investigation in which she discovers the Kafkaesque world of environmental law where native vegetation can be listed on a Register of Protected Trees – and still be chain-sawed for one more suburban estate. The story is familiar but she builds a powerful narrative: heartfelt, persuasive, illuminating. This is a polemic but a restrained one, concluding with an urgent call to action.
Third equal
Lucinda Bain: Paper Thin
From the first line we see a real writer at work: “I thought I knew something of death. Until, on the 20th of May 2016 – my 34th birthday – I found myself breastfeeding my third baby in the same room as my dead grandfather.” A slice of memoir becomes a meditation on the trajectories of births and deaths, from breath to breath. Beautifully written.
Third equal
Max Hayward: Sometimes nothing can happen but fire
The author calls this “a personal essay”. It combines family memoir with recent history – the 2919-20 bushfires – and a persuasive argument to rein in the European determination to dominate the landscape and to learn from indigenous land management practices. Well researched and engagingly written. There is wry humour: (“My family are beachcombers and fast walkers. We are indoctrinated early on by our mothers …”) and insight (“Indigenous people of Australia are already living in a post-apocalyptic world.”)
Highly Commended
Karen Bateman: No place like home
An exploration of home. Can we ever know a place that we didn’t grow up in, or do we need the stories and traditions we grow up with? The author wrestles with a sense of alienation and the conundrum of knowing that to her children this IS home. She broadens it by including other people’s experiences, a friend who is a third generation Bass Coaster and a Bunurong elder who gives her some sage advice. Amusing and thought-provoking.
Jillian Durance: Nothing We Liked Better
The story of a house and its inhabitants, anchored by two old trees: a pine and a pear. It weaves memoir, local history and natural history. A great feat of imagination and beautifully written.
Lauren Burns: Cape Connection
Impressive memoir interweaving a personal journey of discovery with a “coming home” to Bass Coast. Lovely use of language: “I began to frequent the beach for a daily lesson in change.” The writing is fresh, with no cliches, struggling successfully to describe a very unusual situation and to answer important and novel questions.
Fiona Power: On the Shore of the Wide World
Engaging, wryly humorous memoir of a childhood in Bass, cleverly merged with local history.
Karen Bateman, of Inverloch for No Place Like Home;
Jillian Durance, of Moyarra, for Nothing We Liked Better;
Lauren Burns, of Inverloch, for Cape Connection;
and Fiona Power, of Glen Iris, for On the Shore of the Wide World.
The Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction is one of the richest non-fiction prizes in Australia, with $10,000 in prize money, thanks to sponsor Phyllis Papps.
This year’s competition was brought forward to provide an outlet for housebound writers during the COVID lockdowns.
Ms Papps said she was thrilled with the number of entries and the quality of the writing. A week before the deadline, she had only received seven entries and was starting to get worried – but entries came with a rush in the last few days to pass last year’s count of 42.
Judges Geoff Ellis, Anne Heath Mennell and Catherine Watson were impressed by the standard of entries and the breadth of topics. Our winners tackled some meaty issues and topics – climate change, the bush fires, COVID – in an engaging manner.
The competition is open to writers with a strong Gippsland connection. In the second year of the prize, we had a wider geographic range – Bass Coast, Baw Baw, La Trobe, East Gippsland, South Gippsland – and a wider age range of entrants. While four of the winners and commended writers could be described as "women of mature years", we also have two youngish women and one youngish man among them.
Unfortunately, the gender divide remains: only eight of the 44 entrants are male, so it’s not too surprising that only one made it to the winners’ podium.
With the prize now well established on the local writing scene, the team behind the prize will seek sponsorship and hope to run it again in 2021.
The Bass Coast Post will publish the winning entries starting in our next issue.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS
First
Linda Cuttriss: At Screw Creek
Local history at its best – not just a succession of dates and events but merged with a family history, a detective story and a search for understanding. At 9000 words, it has plenty of heft but it’s engaging and the story moves along. The judges were impressed by the way she sought understanding of the pre-European history of the land that five generations of her family have called home.
Second
Jeannie Haughton Who Speaks for the Trees and Creeks? or RUN If You Hear The Word Peri Urban
The author mourns the loss of a beloved avenue of old trees and embarks on an investigation in which she discovers the Kafkaesque world of environmental law where native vegetation can be listed on a Register of Protected Trees – and still be chain-sawed for one more suburban estate. The story is familiar but she builds a powerful narrative: heartfelt, persuasive, illuminating. This is a polemic but a restrained one, concluding with an urgent call to action.
Third equal
Lucinda Bain: Paper Thin
From the first line we see a real writer at work: “I thought I knew something of death. Until, on the 20th of May 2016 – my 34th birthday – I found myself breastfeeding my third baby in the same room as my dead grandfather.” A slice of memoir becomes a meditation on the trajectories of births and deaths, from breath to breath. Beautifully written.
Third equal
Max Hayward: Sometimes nothing can happen but fire
The author calls this “a personal essay”. It combines family memoir with recent history – the 2919-20 bushfires – and a persuasive argument to rein in the European determination to dominate the landscape and to learn from indigenous land management practices. Well researched and engagingly written. There is wry humour: (“My family are beachcombers and fast walkers. We are indoctrinated early on by our mothers …”) and insight (“Indigenous people of Australia are already living in a post-apocalyptic world.”)
Highly Commended
Karen Bateman: No place like home
An exploration of home. Can we ever know a place that we didn’t grow up in, or do we need the stories and traditions we grow up with? The author wrestles with a sense of alienation and the conundrum of knowing that to her children this IS home. She broadens it by including other people’s experiences, a friend who is a third generation Bass Coaster and a Bunurong elder who gives her some sage advice. Amusing and thought-provoking.
Jillian Durance: Nothing We Liked Better
The story of a house and its inhabitants, anchored by two old trees: a pine and a pear. It weaves memoir, local history and natural history. A great feat of imagination and beautifully written.
Lauren Burns: Cape Connection
Impressive memoir interweaving a personal journey of discovery with a “coming home” to Bass Coast. Lovely use of language: “I began to frequent the beach for a daily lesson in change.” The writing is fresh, with no cliches, struggling successfully to describe a very unusual situation and to answer important and novel questions.
Fiona Power: On the Shore of the Wide World
Engaging, wryly humorous memoir of a childhood in Bass, cleverly merged with local history.