Winners and Winners

Two months of 7-On Silence... but only on the blog. In real life, it's been nonstop nattering.
As usual, the reason for the echoey hush is that we've all been too busy writing plays as opposed to posts. But we couldn't let the opportunity go by to congratulate a few of our colleagues on some incredible wins.

First of all: to the wonderful Angela Betzien for being crowned the 2013 Patrick White Fellow, last Friday as part of the Sydney Writers' Festival. And also to the lovely and talented Chris Summers, who won the Patrick White Award for his play 'King Artur'. Shortlisted (from a pool of 119 scripts!) were plays by playwrights both well-established and emerging, all of whom deserve applause for this great achievement: Michael Lill, Mary-Anne Gifford, Fregmonto Stokes and our very own Vanessa Bates.

A big congrats to Andrew Bovell for his share in the Community Relations Commission for a Multicultural New South Wales Award, and to Van Badham for taking out the NSW Premier's Nick Enright Award. And again to Andrew for being shortlisted for this, along with Duncan Graham, Kate Mulvaney and Anne-Louise Sarks.

It's important to remember what a feat it is to be shortlisted: the fact is all writers are more often nominated than awarded, it's a part of the playwriting life. For those of us who've been judges, and most of us have at some point, we know that it can often be a whisker of difference between nominee and winner.

A raised glass of champagne to these writers, winners all!