We are delighted to announce Jill Jones and Tracy Ryan as joint winners of the Whitmore Press Manuscript Prize for 2014.

Of the five years we have run the prize, this year was the most challenging in determining a winner. We received a very large number of entries, including submissions from many highly regarded poets as well as from newer poets already writing strong work. This made the decision difficult – though this was a nice difficulty to have.

After taking extra time to decide a winner, we still couldn’t separate two extremely fine entries. So, we didn’t.

We’re very much looking forward to publishing collections by Jill (from South Australia) and Tracy (Western Australia) in 2015.

This is the second time we have had joint winners for the manuscript prize. The first was in 2011, when B.R. Dionysius and Jo Langdon took the gong.

Our warm thanks again to all who submitted to this year’s prize, and congratulations to those who reached the shortlist and made our judging such a difficult pleasure.