Once the shortlist of six entries had been established, two essays soon emerged as clear favourites. In the end, the judges agreed that each was a fitting winner of the Calibre Prize and that it would be unfair to separate them for the sake of singularity.

The title of Rachel Robertson’s essay is ‘Reaching One Thousand’. This is an impressively subtle study of autism and of its consequences for the child and for the parents alike. With dry wit it also introduces readers to an eccentric world of professional and amateur mathematicians. Ms Robertson’s adroit depiction of a family recognising and responding to autism is as impressive as her anxious care for her son ‘Ben’ (all names in this essay have been changed).

On learning of her success, Rachel Robertson had this to say:

I am delighted and honoured to be a joint winner of the 2008 Calibre essay competition. I am writing a series of autobiographical essays and hope to use the prize money to visit the United Kingdom later this year to revisit my childhood home and undertake research for several new essays. My thanks to Australian Book Review and the Copyright Agency Limited for establishing and administering this wonderful prize, and to this year’s judges. Thanks also to my generous and supportive family, who seem to forgive me for making public what is necessarily a partial and selective version of our shared experience.

Mark Tredinnick’s name will be more familiar to ABR readers. He has published several books and won a number of prizes, among them the 2007 Newcastle Poetry Prize. The title of his essay is ‘A Storm and a Teacup’. It begins in a deluge, as it were: the heavy rains that flooded parts of south-east Australia in June 2007. These falls and the general inundation fail to alleviate Dr Tredinnick’s concerns about ‘the driest continent’ and the need for a profound reassessment of how many resources we all need individually to live equably and sustainably. Tea and its harmonising ceremonies and literature provide the key in this elegant, succinct essay, which also deals with the literary life in the twenty-first century.

Next month we will publish an article by Mark Tredinnick on the Calibre Prize and on the essay per se. Here is a foretaste:

Everyone who reads and writes … ought to be grateful to ABR for setting up this prize, which is already resuscitating the essay in Australia; and we should praise CAL for joining ABR and putting up the kind of money that makes a prize count and attracts writers’ very best work. And speaking personally, as an essayist ought, I’m deeply thankful, and I am surprised and delighted, that my essay (and one other) finished on top of a pile of what I’m sure were many, many brilliant new essays given voice by virtue of the Calibre Prize.

Both essays are published in their entirety in this issue. Readers’ responses to last year’s winning essay, Elisabeth Holdsworth ‘An die Nachgeborenen: For Those Who Come After’, could not have been more appreciative or passionate. We trust that readers derive similar enjoyment from these two new splendid essays by Rachel Robertson and Mark Tredinnick.

Frank, baby

Many of us – not just rueful and incredulous Advances – fret about the unavailability of classic Australian texts, so it is good to hear that Random House Australia has reissued the next three titles in the gloriously named The Moorhouse Collection (if plutocratic art collectors can do it, why not writers?). They are Futility and Other Animals (1969), The Electrical Experience (1975) and The Americans, Baby (1972). Highly recommended, with a dry martini.

Spreading the word

Before Christmas we invited current subscribers to purchase gift subscriptions at a preposterously low price and thus be in the running to win copies of three notable publications of 2007: the new edition of The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (Australian Scholarly Publishing, three volumes), David Malouf’s The Complete Stories (Knopf) and The Oxford Companion to Australian Politics (OUP). We congratulate the following munificent subscribers: Alison Broinowski, David Gilbey, Kevin Gillam, Brenda Niall, Bob Reece, Jan Rutherford and Marian Yuen. Your books are in the mail!

Poetry galore

Judging by the response to the ABR Poetry Prize, this has fast become one of the most desirable poetry prizes in Australia. When entries closed on December 15, we had received 450 entries, a hundred more than last year. Next month we will publish the short-list. The winning poet, who will receive $3000, will be announced in the April issue.