In recent years there’s been a trend of writers publicly giving away prize money to charity or sharing it with other shortlisted writers.

But when novelist Laura Elizabeth Woollett was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, she was working in a call centre. The $80,000 prize would have utterly changed her life and bought her literally years of time to write. 

We’re suspicious of romantic notions about starving artists here at the SRB. We asked Andrew Brooks to talk to Laura about her essay ‘Award Rate’ and the complex relationship between writing, money, work, and prizes.

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Read Laura’s Writers at Work essay ‘Award Rate’ on the SRB website

Laura’s website is lauraelizabethwoollett.com
She’s on Instagram @lauraelizabethwoollett.

Andrew Brooks is one half of the critical art collective Snack Syndicate and part of the Rosa Press collective.

Our producer is Allison Chan. Sound design and mixing by Elina Godwin.

Visit sydneyreviewofbooks.com/podcast for show notes.

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Our website is sydneyreviewofbooks.com

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