Picador has done rather well in this year’s Miles Franklin Literary Award (worth $28,000), with three of the five short-listed novels: Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish, Joan London’s Gilgamesh and Tim Winton’s Dirt Music. Completing the quintet are Steven Carroll’s Art of the Engine Driver (Flamingo) and John Scott’s The Architect (Viking). The winner will be announced in Sydney on June 13.

Perpetual Trustees has been kept busy with short lists, including the one for the 2002 Nita B. Kibble Literary Award for Women Writers. This one, to be announced in Sydney on May 7, is worth $20,000. Three works in different genres have been short-listed: Marion Halligan’s novel The Fog Garden, Jacqueline Kent’s biography of Beatrice Davis, A Certain Style, and Hilary McPhee’s memoir, Other People’s Words.

The Australia Council for the Arts has a new Chairman. David Gonski will chair his first meeting of the Council in June. This follows the unexpected resignation of Dr Terry Cutler, who was appointed in mid-2001.

ABR readers will not want to miss our next two ABR Forums, which could hardly be more topical. On Tuesday, May 28, John Button will be in conversation with Don Watson about the latter’s biography of Paul Keating, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart. The following week, on Wednesday, June 5, Terry Cutler (see above) and Jean Battersby, with Michael Shmith in the chair, will discuss the topic of arts funding and arts bureaucracies. The first two Forums have attracted capacity audiences, so early bookings, through Readings in Carlton, are desirable (see our advertisement on page 10). ABR Forums start at 6.30 p.m. promptly. Radio National is recording them for broadcast later in the year.

The Sydney Writers’ Festival will begin on May 27, when Bob Carr will announce the winners of the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards. Guests include Anthony Bourdain, Bernard Cohen and Kate Jennings.

Jamie O’Neill, visiting Australia for the Festival, will read from his novel At Swim, Two Boys at La Bar in Darlinghurst at 6 p.m. on June 3. The Bookshop is hosting the event.

On May 8, at 6.30 p.m., at the Avenue Bookstore in Albert Park, Melbourne, Brenda Niall will discuss her book The Boyds with Peter Rose, Editor of ABR.

In the Contributors’ Notes in the April issue, we managed to misstate Martin Krygier’s university as the University of Sydney. He is of course Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales. We also referred to the novelist Ian Kennedy Williams as Ian Kennedy Smith. Apologies to both.