LISA Fuller’s novel “Ghost Bird”, released by University of Queensland Press, has been named 2020 ACT Book of the Year by Arts Minister Tara Cheyne.

Fuller, who wins $10,000, is a Murri woman originally from Eidsvold, Queensland. She is a member of the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild, the Canberra Society of Editors, the First Nations Australia Writers Network, and Us Mob Writing.

Her novel, described by Minister Cheyne as “a Young Adult novel with many layers that appeals to people of all ages”, has also won the David Unaipon Award for an Unpublished Indigenous Writer, the Griffith University Young Adult Book Award, the Norma K Hemming Award and Readings Young Adult Book Prize.

The judging panel considered “Ghost Bird” to be “a complex and ambitious novel that uses young adult supernatural fiction to drive a harrowing analysis into colonial trauma”.

In it, Fuller tells of twins Stacey and Laney – mirror images of each other but “as different as the sun and the moon”. When Laney disappears one night, Stacey starts dreaming of her twin. You’ll have to read the novel to find out what happens.

As well as “Ghost Bird”, the judges also recognised two highly commended authors, Nigel Featherstone and Tim Bonyhady, who each won $2,000 respectively for “Bodies of Men” and “The Enchantment of the Long-Haired Rat”.

As previously reported, alongside them, “In Whom We Trust” by John Clanchy and “Acting Like a Girl” by Sandra Renew were shortlisted.

Details of the ACT Book of the Year Awards may be found here and the full list of past winners is here.