Peppermint Book Club: Looking at the “Culture-Shifting” Stella Prize Shortlist
- Words by Peppermint
If there’s one thing better than curling up in your favourite nook with a page-turner of a book, it’d be gushing about your latest read with your closest friends. As JD Salinger’s protagonist says in The Catcher in the Rye, “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much though.” With the idea of promoting good books, good reading and good conversations, we’ve decided to start a Peppermint Book Club. In this special edition, we’re looking at the books on the recently released shortlist for the 2023 Stella Prize.
A major literary award for Australian women and non-binary authors’ writing, the Stella Prize is awarded annually to one outstanding book deemed to be original, excellent and engaging. The six shortlisted books were chosen from over 200 entries spanning genre and form, and include two works of nonfiction, a graphic memoir, one book of poetry and two novels. This year for the first time, all books on the shortlist were published by small or independent publishers.
We Come With This Place by Debra Dank
Educator, author and proud Gudanji and Wakaja woman Dr Debra Dank’s We Come With This Place is a book that defies definition. A memoir of sorts, it weaves an interconnected web of stories from Debra’s life, her family’s personal history, and the larger story of the Gudanji people and Country. Deeply personal and masterfully moving, Debra captures incredible connections and community between generations across history and evokes a powerfully grounded, physical sense of the Country and place.
big beautiful female theory by Eloise Grills
Part feminist manifesto, part comic book, part memoir, part cultural commentary, big beautiful female theory sees Eloise Grills craft a collection of essays that dazzles and delights. Masterfully combining gut-punching vulnerability with gut-busting humour, and mixing her eclectic, energetic art with incisively precise language skill, Eloise explores issues of identity, culture, relationship and the weight of society’s expectations as a fat woman.
The Jaguar by Sarah Holland-Batt
Sarah Holland-Batt may just be one of Australia’s finest living poets and in this new collection, she is operating at the peak of her powers. Opening and closing with startling elegies set in the charged moments before and after a death, The Jaguar confronts the body’s animal appetites, metamorphoses, endurance and inescapable inevitable mortality. Masterfully intelligent, and intensely lyrical, underpinned by a confident clarity of voice, under Sarah’s pen classic themes of love and loss become new and electrifying.
READ MORE – Peppermint Book Club: 10 Books to Kickstart Your Reading in 2023
Hydra by Adriane Howell
Suspenseful and savage, Adrianne Howell’s debut novel Hydra is a captivating tale of female freedom and restraint. Ambitious antiquarian Anja is set adrift amid career calamities. Using the last of her mother’s inheritance, she leases an abandoned, isolated beachside cottage where her solitude is interrupted by a mysterious presence. Exploring moral culpability, revenge, memory and narrative, our narrator shares intimacies and rage with candour, tenderness and humour.
Indelible City by Louisa Lim
The story of Hong Kong has long been obscured by competing myths; from the British, the Chinese and its own inhabitants. Raised in Hong Kong as a half-Chinese, half-English child, and working in the region as a reporter for a decade – Louisa Lim felt uniquely positioned to unearth the untold stories of Hong Kong. A deeply researched and personal account, Indelible City features guerrilla calligraphers, amateur historians and archaeologists and the iconic street artist known as “the King of Kowloon”, creating an insightful and original exploration of an extraordinary city.
Bad Art Mother by Edwina Preston
In Bad Art Mother, Edwina Preston explores an age-old question – if good mothers are selfless and good artists are selfish, what does this mean for a mother with artistic ambitions? This extraordinary novel follows the Faustian bargain of frustrated poet Veda Gray, invited by a wealthy couple to exchange her young son Owen for time to write. As Owen reflects on his boyhood in the Melbourne milieu, he struggles with the idea of ‘being a man’ – while the women in his life struggle to be recognised as legitimate artists.
READ MORE – Peppermint Book Club: 22 Books by BIPOC Authors You Need to Read
JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
Brighten up your inbox with our not-too-frequent emails featuring Peppermint-related news, events, competitions and more!
explore
More articles
Hang out with us on Instagram
On the 14th of April 2013 the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed, tragically killing 1134 workers and injuring over 2,500 more.
Every year we commemorate this devastating and avoidable loss of life and advocate for better working conditions for all during Fashion Revolution Week, which runs from 22nd-28th April in 2026.
This year there are different themes for each day of the week, with the annual Mend In Public day falling right in the middle, on Saturday 25th April.
This is your cue to gather your community, settle in and commit some time, attention and creativity to mending your clothes in the pursuit of extending their life in your wardrobe. Be it patching, embroidery, sewing or stitching, there are many ways to resolve structural and aesthetic issues in your garments that will see you donning them for years to come!
If it’s a bit tricky to get mending on the day itself (it will be ANZAC Day here in Australia) then fear not. Any time is the right time for mending so if you need to take needle in hand on another day that will do just fine!
Comment below if you know of any events you`d like to share happening in your community.
Learn more and get involved:
@FashionRevolutionAustralia
@Fash_Rev
FashionRevolution.org
#FashionRevolution #WhoMadeMyClothes #MendInPublicDay
“This is just a reminder to you to go for your big dreams! They might just work out.” ❤️
And we’re so glad you did, Emma!
From @CinnamonDaisyStudio:
No biggie, I’m just in a really cool magazine 🥹
When @Laura_The_Maker reached out to me last year to ask if I’d be interested in being featured in @PeppermintMagazine I didn’t hold back. I 100% fan girled 🤣 it was obviously a yes!
Getting to talk about the positive impact sewing your own clothes has on your body image is the BEST. I started sewing my own clothes because the standard doesn’t fit me. But I wasn’t expecting to heal my body image at the same time. What a wonderful byproduct ❤️🩹
So this is just a reminder to you to go for your big dreams! They might just work out ❤️
Mother`s Day Chocolate Treats Subscription Special! 🌟
This very sweet subscription offer comes with some glorious goodies, thanks to our friends at @TheOriginalCocoaTradersCo!
Our lovely community manager Em, runs us through the offer.
SUBSCRIBE FOR $79 AND RECEIVE:
🌟 1 x 12-month Peppermint Subscription!
PLUS!
🌟 Vegan, gluten-free, 43% cocoa, Certified-Organic Taming The Jackalope Drinking Chocolate from @TheOriginalCocoaTradersCo
🌟 Vegan, gluten-free, 70% cocoa, Certified-Organic Ship To Wreck Chocolate Flakes from @TheOriginalCocoaTradersCo
🌟 Issue 64 (includes a free code for the #PeppermintDaisyDress digital sewing pattern!)
🌟 A5 art card of our exclusive ‘Together We Rise’ Issue 60 cover design by @LukeJohnMatthewArnold
🌟 All wrapped in fabric from @DoopsDesigns
Price includes postage! This special offer is available to Australian addresses only. Don`t miss out – there`s limited numbers!
🌟 Link in bio!
#PeppermintMagazine #MothersDay
Calling all brands who give a damn! 📣
Bookings for our wonderful Sew&Tell digital issue are now open – if you are an awesome creative brand that fits right in with Peppermint`s ethos of style, sustainability, sewing and substance, get in touch. Or if you know of one who might be keen – tag them below. We have packages for budgets both big and small, but spots are limited, so don`t wait too long to get in touch!
Drop us a line at Mandy@PeppermintMag.Com for a chat with Mandy, our lovely advertising manager – she`ll help you find the best way to share your good work with our awesome audience.
We`d sew love to work with you! ✨️🧵✨️
#PeppermintSewAndTell
💛 BFF GIVEAWAY 💛
Generous, messy, creative, spiky, warm, enigmatic… our best friends come in many flavours. But they all have one thing in common: they make the world a far better, more interesting place to be.
Inspired by Sam and Sadie’s complicated ‘forever’ bond in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by @GabrielleZevin (a firm Peppermint fave ‘friendy’ read), we’ve rounded up some iconic fictional duos from books, movies and TV - the ride-or-dies, bosom buddies, chosen family, the ‘you’re-my-person’ people.
They all remind us that the non-romantic kind of love is always worth the effort (and it’s often the kind that lasts!). Think Anne Shirley and Diana Barry, Calvin and Hobbes, Snoopy and Woodstock, Eloise and Penelope… Head to the link in bio to read the full story and meet them all!
We’ve got two copies of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow to gift to one lucky Peppermint reader and their bestie, thanks to @PenguinBooksAus.
To enter:
✨Follow us and @PenguinBooksAus
✨Tag your best friend in the comments
✨Tell them why they’re so darn great!
Because as Sadie tells Sam: true collaborators in life are rare. And very much worth celebrating.
Winner drawn Tuesday 21 April 2pm. Australian addresses only. Good luck! 📖
#BFF #BookGiveaway #TomorrowAndTomorrowAndTomorrow
Mother`s Day Chocolate Treats Subscription Special! 🌟
It`s almost time to celebrate that special person in your life who has motherly energy – mum, aunty, single parent, queer parent, grandparent, caregiver... or maybe just someone who happens to love getting chocolate treats (and hey, maybe that someone is YOU!).
This very sweet subscription offer comes with some glorious goodies, thanks to our friends at @TheOriginalCocoaTradersCo!
SUBSCRIBE FOR $79 AND RECEIVE:
🌟 1 x 12-month Peppermint Subscription
PLUS!
🌟 Vegan, gluten-free, 43% cocoa, Certified-Organic Taming The Jackalope Drinking Chocolate from @TheOriginalCocoaTradersCo
🌟 Vegan, gluten-free, 70% cocoa, Certified-Organic Ship To Wreck Chocolate Flakes from @TheOriginalCocoaTradersCo
🌟 Issue 64 (includes a free code for the #PeppermintDaisyDress digital sewing pattern!)
🌟 A5 art card of our exclusive ‘Together We Rise’ Issue 60 cover design by @LukeJohnMatthewArnold
🌟 All wrapped in fabric from @DoopsDesigns
Price includes postage! This special offer is available to Australian addresses only. Don`t miss out – there`s limited numbers!
🌟 Link in bio 🌟
#PeppermintMagazine #MothersDay
