The winners of the 2007 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards have been announced by Culture and Arts Minister John Day.

Mr Day announced the seven category winners at a ceremony at the State Library of Western Australia.

The selected titles were chosen from a short list of 28. Each category winner received $7,500.

Works were awarded in the following categories: Non-Fiction; Fiction; Children’s Books; Poetry; Scripts; Young Adults; and History.

“These awards have been running for the past 26 years and are a wonderful reflection of the depth of Western Australian talent,” the Minister said.

“The State Library of Western Australia, which runs these awards, continues to do a marvellous job supporting Western Australian writers and writing.

“One of today’s selected titles will be presented with the $20,000 Premier’s Prize at an awards ceremony to be held on November 21 at Fraser’s Restaurant in Kings Park.

“This will also be the occasion at which we announce the winner of the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award,” Mr Day said.

Chair of the judging panel Chloe Mauger said that there were so many well-written and interesting works to assess, with strong contenders in every category, that the task of judging, though time-consuming, was a privilege and a pleasure.

To be eligible the work must have been published or produced in 2007.  Writers must have either been born in WA; reside in Western Australia; been a resident in WA for a minimum of 10 years; or have Western Australia as the work’s primary focus.

The judging panel consisted of panel chair Chloe Mauger, Margot Lang, John Tonkin and Patrick Cornish.

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