This is pretty awesome news. Asian Australian writer Jackie Bailey has secured a book deal with Hardie Grant Books. Her debut manuscript “The Eulogy” was a finalist for the 2020 SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition, and it was this submission which scored her the deal.
Bailey’s submission made the competition long list, which meant that she was awarded the opportunity to have the entry published in Roots: Home Is Who We Are, an anthology of the competition’s top 30 entries.
This is what Bailey told SBS about her reaction when she received the news:
“I was in shock…I was really excited, it just felt like my head was going to explode,”
“Relief was the big emotion because…the book had been shortlisted and longlisted for stuff so you keep thinking ‘Oh it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen.’ And it doesn’t happen. And so, I’d kind of shelved it in my mind.”
“When the editor from Hardie Grant contacted the anthology authors…I said, ‘Here it is, and it’s part of a longer manuscript if you want to see that.’
“It was kind of like having a champion at Hardie Grant [which] was really, really amazing.”
Bailey also stated that she would have never received this book deal without the acknowledgement from the SBS emerging writers competition.
Her book “The Eulogy” is scheduled to be published on 1 June 2022.
Image via SBS News