Prom inspires prize-winning work

LUCINDA Bain has won the 2022 Bass Coast Prize for Non-Fiction with The Prom, a personal interrogation of her own place in nature in the midst of a climate emergency.

Lucinda, who wins $5000 for her essay, showed the value of perseverance after a third equal placing in the 2020 prize and an unsuccessful entry last year.

The judges said of The Prom: “Lyrical writing, tying past, present and future: the acknowledgement of the past, the fear and beauty of the present, the ever-diminishing hope for the future. It feels slightly bleak, yet ends on a hopeful, simple (yet profound) fact…

“Fantastic interrogation of the complexities of living under a constant and imminent existential threat in the context of privileged albeit sometimes mundane modern living.” 

Lucinda, who is based in Eltham but has strong Gippsland connections, is currently working on a collection of essays exploring concepts of motherhood and climate change.

With $10,000 in prize money, the Bass Coast Prize is one of the richest prizes for short non-fiction in Australia. It’s also one of the few regional prizes, with entry open to writers living in Gippsland or who have a strong link to the region.

The 26 entries came from all parts of Gippsland, 15 were by women and 11 by men, and the writers ranged from the late teens to the late 80s.

Bass Coast Shire Council, the West Gippsland Regional Library Corporation and ArtSpace Wonthaggi sponsored this year’s prizes.

This is the fourth year of the competition and the first time it has included a section for shorter works between 2000 and 4000 words.

Grace Elizabeth Elkins, a Cape Woolamai writer and teacher, won the short section with She and I (and truth and fiction), an intriguing exploration of the way an adolescent illness has informed personal perspective and memory.

Jim Connelly, a retired teacher and church minister living in Warragul, was second with One Morning, on the Way to School, a rollicking snapshot of the daily school bus ride from Garfield to Warragul in the 1940s.

Cape Paterson author and publisher Kit Fennessy was third with Sands of Time, a witty slice of memoir that seamlessly weaves together metaphysics, geology, history and Jimmy Hendrix.

The prize-winning entries are published in the Bass Coast Post: basscoastpost.com/bass-coast-prize1.html

All entrants will be invited to celebrate with the prize winners at a gathering in late January or early February.