Interview: Bram Presser – 2024 Stella Prize Judge

Award-winning author Bram Presser is a semi-reformed punk rocker, recovering academic, lapsed lawyer, co-founder of the Melbourne Jewish Book Week, and full-time dad.

What excites you about judging the 2024 Stella Prize and awarding the next Stella Prize winner?

I feel we’re amidst a new golden era of Australian literature, with established authors producing great books and a fresh crop of genuinely exciting new writers exploding onto the scene.

Stella gives me the opportunity to read widely across genres and forms to find the best of the best. Although Stella is a relatively recent addition to the literary prize landscape, it already has an unparalleled track record of making bold decisions and finding incredible books. It has moved beyond its initial raison d’être by amplifying books from voices that are often marginalised. Stella has broadened our appreciation of the beauty and depth of Australian writing and has brought attention to books that otherwise might not have been celebrated as they deserve. 

Why did you become a writer?

My parents tell me that I was an easy child because they just needed to stick me in a corner with a book and I’d be happy for hours. Not much has changed. I spend all my spare time reading. I dread dying before I have the chance to read all the books ever written.

I’m mostly obsessed with novellas, which I see as the perfect written form. Otherwise, I particularly love reading outside my comfort zone. Writing is how I reckon with this mess of a world; how I keep myself entertained; how I wrestle with my identity; and how I converse (or sometimes argue) with the authors I love. Also, I don’t think I was a very good lawyer.

Tell us something about yourself that we won’t find on your CV.

I have my daughters’ handprints from the day after they were born tattooed on my right forearm, and Kafka’s sketch of the suffering writer slumped over his desk on my left. That pretty much sums up my life.