The Miles Franklin Literary Award, Australia’s oldest and most prestigious book prize, has just announced this year’s shortlist.

The prize was established as a bequest from Miles Frankin, author My Brilliant Career, after her death in 1954. It is now worth $60,000.

Patrick White was the first winner for the novel Voss in 1957, and rumour has it, after hearing he’d won the award he said in his usual dry manner, “I am going to buy a hi-fi set and a kitchen stove.”

This year, eight of ten of the shortlist are female authors. This comes after the prize has been derided in the past for being, in the delicate language of my childhood, a “sausage fest”, according to Stephen Romei in The Australian.

“After all-male shortlists in 2009 and 2011 the Miles Franklin faced accusations of male bias, and this in part led to the creation of the Stella Prize for Australian women’s literature, which announced its shortlist last week. Two of the Stella shortlistees are on the Miles Franklin longlist: de Kretser and Tiffany. Stedman last night won the Indie Book of the Year award for her novel.”

In response to this year’s female dominance, Australian journalist Bethanie Blanchard helpfully asked her Twitter followers what the female equivalant of a “sausagefest” is. Try “oestrogen feastrogen” (or others I can’t mention here).

Whittled down from seventy-three nominees, the prize is also supporting five first time novellists, Romy Ash, Annah Faulkner, Drusilla Modjeska, M.L. Stedman and Jacqueline Wright, as well as two time winner Thomas Keneally.

A full list of past winners can be found here, but my particular favourites, besides the dark classic Voss, would be Peter Carey‘s Oscar and Lucinda in 1989 and Alexis Wright‘s Carpentaria in 2007. Carpentaria was widely praised and is available in the United States, as I discovered the other day when I tried to buy it to re-read, though it has a hideous and parochial cover (thanks for nothing, publisher who shall not be named).

The winner of the Miles Franklin prize will be announced on June 19.

Romy Ash – Floundering

Lily Brett – Lola Bensky

Brian Castro – Street to Street

Michelle de Kretser – Questions of Travel

Annah Faulkner – The Beloved

Tom Keneally – The Daughters of Mars

Drusilla Modjeska – The Mountain

M.L.Stedman – The Light Between Oceans

Carrie Tiffany – Mateship with Birds

Jacqueline Wright – Red Dirt Talking