Creatures and critters take centre stage in Hungerford Award winning manuscript

Greg Taylor has won the 35th Hungerford Award for Wildlife in the Open Eucalyptus Forests. Written from the viewpoint of 24 species – none of which are human – this collection of narrative non-fiction essays is an invitation to see the world from a different perspective.

Greg Taylor

After growing up in Miami and living in San Francisco, Greg came to live in Perth after a Goldilocks moment in which he found Melbourne too cold and Brisbane too humid. He is anecologist and a passionate birder who has stalked fairy-wrens at the foot of the Great Dividing Range, captured black-legged kittiwakes atop an abandoned radio tower on an island off the coast of Alaska and chased Caspian terns from the ocean to the desert.

It’s an exciting life but one which Greg admits has earnt him little to no money leading him to believe he’d never be shortlisted for the Hungerford Award, much less win.

Greg said the win has made him hope that there is a much broader audience for his work than just the animal-nerds he had imagined. ‘The book sits in a weird space between storytelling and science writing. [It] is an attempt to move beyond familiarity, towards understanding and, perhaps, to love.’

Greg said, ‘I am madly in love with Australia’s wildlife, and I want to share that madness by telling the stories of the black-cockatoo, the ringtail possum, the scarlet robin, and many others. I believe that when we truly know someone or something, we cannot help but love them; and with that love comes a commitment not only to refrain from harm, but to protect.’

Also growing up Stateside, Mayor of Fremantle Ben Lawver announced the win on Friday 16 October at Walyalup Civic Centre. Mayor Lawver said, ‘The City is excited to welcome another gifted writer to the Hungerford Award alumni. We place great value on the environments in which we live, so it seems appropriate to support a manuscript which acknowledges our neighbours – the creatures who live alongside us, familiar but rarely understood.’

Fremantle Press CEO Alex Allan said ‘Fremantle Press is charged with sharing Western Australian stories, and Greg’s manuscript reminds us that we share this extraordinary place with other sentient beings. We’re proud to see the Hungerford unearthing such an important work.’

This year, 128 manuscripts were received, the largest number in the Award’s 35-year historyand an increase of 38% on the previous round.

Judged anonymously, the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award is a biennial prize awarded for an unpublished manuscript by a Western Australian author for a work of fiction, narrative non-fiction or young adult fiction. The winner receives a cash prize of $15,000, a publishing contract with Fremantle Press and a fellowship with the Centre for Stories.

The other manuscripts shortlisted were Moments in the Dust by David Harris (fiction), Torchby Michal Stone (verse novel) and The Ridicule and Resurrection of Marija Gimbutas by Jessica Kennedy (narrative non-fiction).

The 35th Hungerford Award was judged by consulting judges Chemutai Glasheen, MarcellaPolain and Richard Rossiter, alongside Fremantle Press publishers Georgia Richter and Cate Sutherland.

*Don’t miss our podcast with the winner coming up early next week.

~ If you’d like to COMMENT on this or any of our stories, don’t hesitate to email our Editor.

~ WHILE YOU’RE HERE –