One year ago today, I came home from shopping, checked my emails, and my life changed. One year ago today I found out I’d won the Kathleen Grattan award. One year ago today.
Somewhere out there is another poet, trying not to burst with the news. Or maybe this year’s winner is a veteran of such things, and is simply sitting there, feeling pleased but not jubilant, maybe day-dreaming a little about what they’ll do with the money. Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor … Maybe it’s you?
These last twelve months have been such an amazing ride. And virtually painless – the process of editing the book; even the rollercoaster mambo that was the saga of the cover design – everything clicked into place when it needed to. (I don’t think it’s just the poets’ equivalent of the hormonal surge that kicks in to wipe your memory of pain after childbirth …)
So, whoever you are, I wish you the same joy. I hope it’s as life-changing for you as it was for me. May your book be everything you wanted, and then a good big dollop of all sorts of wonderful possibility that you hadn’t even thought to entertain. May you fly high. May you never need to land.
A Dark Feathered Art 
I, too, am looking forward to learning who is this year’s winner. And no, I didn’t enter a manuscript (simple reason–don’t have one to enter) but I understand that there were a huge number of contenders, which is easy to understand given the “glittering prize” of money and likely publication that awaits the winner.