SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
Debut
writer Evelyn Araluen has won the Stella prize, Australia’s literary award for
women and non-binary writers, for her collection Dropbear – making her the first poet to
win the $60,000 award in the first year poetry was allowed to enter.
The biggest impact this will have on her life, she
says, is that she can now drop one of the part-time jobs she works in order to
support her writing – which means that she will only have two. She is only
half-joking; the lockdowns, cutbacks and cancellations of the past two years
have made the already-difficult task of making a living as a writer (of any
kind, let alone a poet) even more challenging than usual.
The desk where she edited Dropbear was the only piece of furniture in her entire flat, aside from her bed. She had just moved to Melbourne when the first lockdowns began in 2020, making it impossible for her and her partner to find work in their new city. Additional furniture would have to wait a few months when they could afford it.