CANBERRA playwright Dylan Van Den Berg continues his winning streak with the announcement at the ACT Notable Book Awards Night as the overall winner of the 2023 Marion Special Book Award for his play “Whitefella Yella Tree”.

The Special Book Award recognises work that demonstrates “uniqueness, literary excellence and surpasses genre”.

Van Den Berg recently won the $30,000 Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, for the same book. He had previously won the drama awards at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 2021 and the Victorian Premier’s in 2022.

“Whitefella Yella Tree”, commissioned by Griffin Theatre, was described by the judges as “an emotionally affecting, imaginative and wildly symbolic love story about two young First Nations men.”

Earlier in the evening, two named awards were announced, the national June Shenfield National Poetry Award going to Rhian Healy from WA, with Alana Kelsall from Victoria in second place and Rebecca Fleming from the ACT third.

The 11th Anne Edgeworth Writers Fellowship of $5000 for an emerging ACT region writer went to Linda Chen to help her develop writing television and film screenplays.

The full list of the 2023 ACT Notable Book winners is as follows:

June Shenfield National Poetry Award

1st Place – Rhian Healy (WA)

2nd Place – Alana Kelsall (Victoria)

3rd Place Rebecca Fleming (ACT)

The Anne Edgeworth Writers Fellowship

$5,000 Awarded to Linda Chen

POETRY AWARDS, judged by Subhash Jaireth

Winner (Traditional Publishing): Penelope Layland for “Beloved” (Recent Work Press)

Highly Commended: Peter Ramm for “Waterlines” (Vagabond Press)

Winner (Self-Published): Maurice Nevile for “Translating Loss: a haiku collection”

NON-FICTION AWARDS, judged by Jessica Friedmann

Winner (Traditional Publishing): Jan William Smith for “The Glass Cricket Ball” (Big Sky)

Highly Commended: Katrina Marson for “Legitimate Sexpectations” (Scribe Publications)

Winner (Self-Published): Helen Topor for “Neither King nor Saint”

CHILDREN’S BOOKS, judged by Anna Branford

Winner (Traditional Publishing): Jackie French and Bruce Whatley for “Diary of a Rescued Wombat”: The untold story (HarperCollins Australia)

Highly Commended: Irma Gold and Wayne Harris for “Seree’s Story” (Walker Books Australia)

Highly Commended: Stephanie Owen Reeder and Astred Hicks for “Swifty the Super-Fast Parrot” (CSIRO Publishing)

Winner (Self-published): Barbie Robinson and Ian Robertson for “Charles the Gallery Dog” (For Pity Sake)

FICTION BOOKS, judged by Lucy Neave

Winner (Traditional Publishing): Chris Hammer for “The Tilt” (Allen & Unwin)

Winner (Self-published): Tanya Davies for “Then Eve”.