CLICK HERE to read a Q&A that The Stella Prize conducted with Lisa, it gives you exclusive insight into her “writing place”.

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1273665-the-sunlit-zone-availability

Judge’s comments can be read here: http://thestellaprize.com.au/2013/shortlist

Chair of the Stella Prize judging panel, Kerryn Goldsworthy, says: Out of the almost 200 original entries, the judges have arrived at a varied and eclectic longlist that reflects the breadth of imagination, knowledge and skill in contemporary Australian women’s writing. The list includes a collection of short stories, a fantasy novel, a speculative-fiction verse novel, and three non-fiction books with very different subjects and styles. There are mixed-genre books involving biography, history, memoir and art; there are novels about real people, and nonfiction books using the beautiful writing techniques of fiction. There are stories from the past and from the future; stories of children at risk, of racial tension, of world travel, and of unimaginable danger and loss. The judges will now decide on a shortlist that will be announced on Wednesday 20 March.

Toby Davidson beguiles with his imaginative abundance and evolved ability to strike the right note to set each poem in his debut book resonating. Davidson’s work is playful, yet also ennobled by a profound sense of what it means to survive in these chaotic modern times. An elegiac poet of the road, of human possibility and triumph and rigorously attentive to every word, he never lets the dust settle; Beast Language has swank, flair, enormous breadth, and some of the most zestful verbal structures I have read in a long time. A real treasure.
- Judith Beveridge

Toby Davidson’s Beast Language is a remarkable first book of poetry. With each reading,
there are new revelations. Like Blake’s ‘Mental Traveller’ the narrator of this book pays
fierce attention to the human ‘beast’ and listens to the language of the political climate,
all done with insistent though complex music. A wondrous achievement, a book to boost
the spirit with a lyrical alertness and visionary pitch that is thrilling to read.
- Robert Adamson

Click here if you wish to purchase Beast Language via an Order Form