The ALS Gold Medal is awarded annually for an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year. The Medal was inaugurated by the Australian Literature Society, which was founded in Melbourne in 1899 and incorporated into the Association for the Study of Australian Literature in 1982. The winner receives a gold medal. ASAL members are invited to propose potential winners to the judging panel and publishers are also invited to nominate titles.
Eligibility
Nominations are invited for literary works published in the year prior to the year of the award.
Selection process
The awarding of the prize is administered and judged by a panel set up by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature.
2024 Judges
To be announced.
Terms and conditions
The ALS Gold Medal will be awarded in July 2024.
Nominations may be made either by the author or, with the nominee’s permission, by the book’s publishers or by any member of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL).
The judges’ decision is final.
Submission process
There is a 2-step process.
Please select the appropriate form – ASAL Members/Public OR Publishers
Nomination forms must be emailed to [email protected].
Contact details for judges will be provided immediately on receipt of the Nomination Form.
Please note that all submissions will be received in confidence and securely held. Information provided will be used only for the purpose of administering the award.
ASAL thanks everyone for their participation in this process.
Queries
Queries should be directed to Professor Tanya Dalziell (ASAL Prize Coordinator)
ALS Gold Medal Winner 2023
Debra Dank, We Come With This Place
ALS Gold Medal shortlist citations
ALS Gold Medal shortlist 2023
Debra Dank, We Come With This Place
Robbie Arnott, Limberlost
Fiona Kelly McGregor, Iris
Gavin Yuan Gao, At the Altar of Touch
Adam Ouston, Waypoints
Charmaine Papertalk Green & John Kinsella, ART
ALS Gold Medal Longlist 2023
Robbie Arnott, Limberlost (Text)
Jessica Au, Cold Enough for Snow (Giramondo)
Michelle Cahill, Daisy and Woolf (Hachette)
Debra Dank, We Come With This Place (Echo Publishing)
Michael Farrell, Googlecholia (Giramondo)
Lionel Fogarty, Harvest Lingo (Giramondo)
Sarah Holland-Batt, The Jaguar (UQP)
Gail Jones, Salonika Burning (Text )
Fiona Kelly McGregor, Iris (Pan Macmillan)
Adam Ouston, Waypoints (Puncher & Wattmann)
Charmaine Papertalk Green & John Kinsella, ART (Magabala Books)
Jock Serong, The Settlement (Text)
Gavin Yuan Gao, At the Altar of Touch (UQP)
Emily Bitto, Wild Abandon (Allen and Unwin)
Andy Jackson, Human Looking (Giramondo)
John Kinsella, Pushing Back (Transit Lounge)
SJ Norman, Permafrost (University of Queensland Press)
Elfie Shiosaki, Homecoming (Magabala Books)
Maria Takolander, Trigger Warning (University of Queensland Press)
David Allen-Petale, Locust Summer (Fremantle Press)
Eunice Andrada, Take Care (Giramondo)
Emily Bitto, Wild Abandon (Allen and Unwin)
Katherine Brabon, The Shut Ins (Allen and Unwin)
Andy Jackson, Human Looking (Giramondo)
John Kinsella, Pushing Back (Transit Lounge)
Omar Musa, Killernova (Penguin)
SJ Norman, Permafrost (University of Queensland Press)
Elfie Shiosaki, Homecoming (Magabala Books)
Maria Takolander, Trigger Warning (University of Queensland Press)
Nardi Simpson, Song of the Crocodile (Hachette Australia)
Robbie Arnott, The Rain Heron (Text Publishing)
Luke Best, Cadaver Dog (University of Queensland Press)
Laura Jean MacKay, The Animals in That Country (Scribe Publications)
Ronnie scott, The Adversary (Penguin Books)
Nardi Simpson, Song of the Crocodile (Hachette Australia)
Ellen Van Neerven, Throat (University of Queensland Press)
The judges for the 2021 ALS Gold Medal, Brigid Magner, Clare Archer-Lean and Jessica White, read 80 titles from 2020 and were astounded by the fecundity and innovation they demonstrated. While the pandemic has been devastating, these works show that it has also been energising for the writing and reading of Australian literature. Reflecting the open-ness of the ALS Gold medal, the longlist includes works of poetry, crime, speculative and young adult fiction by authors ranging from early career to established. Congratulations
Amanda Lohrey, The Labyrinth
Robbie Arnott, The Rain Heron
Laura Jean McKay, The Animals in that Country
Cath Moore, Metal Fish, Falling Snow
Philip Salom, The Fifth Season
S.L. Lim, Revenge: Murder in Three Parts
Ali Whitelock, The Lactic Acid in the Calves of Your Despair
Ronnie Scott, The Adversary
Nardi Simpson, The Song of the Crocodile
Ellen van Neerven, Throat
Luke Best, Cadaver Dog
Andrew Pippos, Lucky’s
2018, Shastra Deo, The Agonist (UQP)
2017, Zoe Morrison, Music and Freedom
2016, Brenda Niall, Mannix
2015, Jennifer Maiden, Drones and Phantoms (Giramondo)
2014 Alexis Wright, The Swan Book (Giramondo)
2013 Michelle De Kretser, Questions of Travel (Allen &Unwin).
2012 Gillian Mears, Foal’s Bread (Allen & Unwin)
2011 Kim Scott, That Deadman Dance (Pan Macmillan)
2010 David Malouf, Ransom (Knopf)
2009Christos Tsiolkas, The Slap (Allen & Unwin)
2008 Michelle de Kretser, The Lost Dog (Allen & Unwin)
2007 Alexis Wright, Carpentaria (Giramondo )
2006 Gregory Day, The Patron Saint of Eels (Picador)
2005 Gail Jones, Sixty Lights (Harvill Press)
2004 Laurie Duggan, Mangroves (UQP)
2003 Kate Jennings, Moral Hazard
2002 Richard Flanagan, Gould’s Book of Fish
2001 Rodney Hall, The Day We Had Hitler Home
2000 Drusilla Modjeska, Stravinsky’s Lunch
1999 Murray Bail, Eucalyptus
1998 James Cowan, A Mapmaker’s Dream
1997 Robert Dessaix, Night Letters
1996 Amanda Lohrey, Camille’s Bread
1995 Helen Demidenko, The Hand That Signed The Paper
1994 Louis Nowra, Radiance and The Temple
1993 Elizabeth Riddell, Selected Poems
1992 Rodney Hall, The Second Bridegroom
1991 Elizabeth Jolley, Cabin Fever
1990 Peter Porter, Possible Worlds
1989 Frank Moorhouse, Forty-seventeen
1988 Brian Matthews, Louisa
1987 Alan Wearne, The Nightmarkets
1986 Thea Astley, Beachmasters
1985 David Ireland, Archimedes and the Seagle
1984 Les Murray, The People’s Other World
1983 David Malouf, Child’s Play; Fly Away Peter
1975-82 No Award (ASAL takes over award in 1983)
1974 David Malouf, Neighbours in a Thicket
1973 Francis Webb
1972 Alexander Buzo
1971 Colin Badger
1970 Manning Clark
1966 A.D. Hope
1965 Patrick White, The Burnt Ones
1964 Geoffrey Blainey, The Rush That Never Ended
1963 John Morrison, Twenty-three stories
1962 Vincent Buckley, Masters in Israel
1960 William Hart Smith, Poems of discovery
1959 Randolph Stow, To the Islands
1957 Martin Boyd, A Difficult Young Man
1955 Patrick White, The Tree of Man
1954 Mary Gilmore, Fourteen Men
1952 Tom Hungerford
1950 Jon Cleary, Just Let Me Be
1948 Herz Bergner, Between Sky and Sea
1942 Kylie Tennant, The Battlers
1941 Patrick White, Happy Valley
1940 William Baylebridge, This Vital Flesh
1939 Xavier Herbert, Capricornia
1938 R.D. FitzGerald, Moonlight Acre
1937 Kenneth ‘Seaforth’ Mackenzie, The Young Desire It
1936 Eleanor Dark, Return to Coolami
1935 Winifred Birkett, Earth’s Quality
1934 Eleanor Dark, Prelude to Christopher
1933 G.B. Lancaster (Edith J. Lyttleton) , Pageant
1932 Leonard Mann, Flesh in Armour
1931 Frank Dalby Davison, Manshy
1930 Vance Palmer, The Passage
1929 Henry Handel Richardson, Ultima Thule
1928 Martin Mills (Martin Boyd) , The Montforts
We are grateful to the following ALS Gold Medal Donors: Bill Ashcroft, Bernadette Brennan, Judith Brett, Philip Butterss, Julian Croft, Tony Hughes-D’aeth, Kieran Dolin, Paul Eggert, Frances de Groen, Margaret Harris, Nick Hasluck, Harry Heseltine, Helen Hewson, Ivor Indyk, Lynn Jacobs, Gail Jones, Veronica Kelly, Alan Lawson, Susan Lever, Elaine Lindsay, Philip Mead, Barbara Milech, Nicole Moore, Elizabeth Morrison, Heather Neilson, Jill Roe, Brigid Rooney, Paul Sharrad, Susan Sheridan, Tony Simoes da Silva, Yvonne Smith, Andrew Taylor, Helen Tiffin, Shirley Walker, Elizabeth Webby, Jim Wieland, Gerry Wilkes, John McLaren.