On 30 October 2008 the winners of the 2007 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards were announced by Culture and Arts Minister John Day.
Among the award winners was Subiaco Football Club Vice Patron Dr Ken Spillman, who won the award in the category for Young Adults books. Ken’s novel is titled LOVE IS A UFO.
Everyone associated with Subiaco FC congratulates Ken on this wonderful and deserving achievement.
SFC members will recall that Dr Ken Spillman was also the author of the books written in two volumes to celebrate the Club’s centenary in 2000 – the two books being “Diehards (1896-1945) & (1946-2000), The Story of the Subiaco Football Club.
Minister Day announced the seven category winners at a ceremony at the State Library of Western Australia. The selected titles were chosen from a short list of 28. Each category winner received $7,500. Works were awarded in the following categories: Non-Fiction; Fiction; Children’s Books; Poetry; Scripts; Young Adults; and History.
To be eligible the work must have been published or produced in 2007. Writers must have either been born in WA; reside in Western Australia; been a resident in WA for a minimum of 10 years; or have Western Australia as the work’s primary focus. The judging panel consisted of panel chair Chloe Mauger, Margot Lang, John Tonkin and Patrick Cornish.
The following is a brief summary of the book:
For Oscar, life is ‘weird and getting weirder’ after his parents separate, his father moves on to a new relationship, and then Dad suddenly dies. Confused about what he - 3 - is supposed to feel, Oscar finds some enlightenment discussing his problems with sympathetic adults, but when his attention is captured by a cute new girl in the park he has yet one more problem to figure out. Family relationships under stress are vividly conveyed through wildly veering emotions. Chapters are short and punchy, leavened with email exchanges and perfectly capturing the tone and mood of a young teenage boy dealing with complex life issues in the 21st century. How Oscar navigates his way through his adolescent grief with an angry mother, ‘zombie’ sister, Dad’s girlfriend and assorted school problems could be a story drowned in angst, but in the skilful hands of this author, Oscar’s emotional journey is told with sensitivity and a lively dollop of humour.
