Winner of the 2024 ACT Book of the Year, Chris Hammer, with ACT Arts Minister Tara Cheyne. Photo: ACT Government.
Thirteen years ago, Chris Hammer’s first book, The River, won the ACT Book of the Year. Today, his eighth book and sixth crime fiction novel, The Seven, has won it again – for 2024.
Soon after the announcement, the writer was doing one of the things he loves best, walking up Red Hill, his thinking place.
“It’s where I do my best work,” he said. “Not writing, just thinking – Canberra really is the best place for that.”
Later, he said, he’d drop by the supermarket for a few things for dinner. Then there was some housework to do, followed by a few social media posts – “I’d better do them – and then there are a couple of media interviews”.
For this writer, who spent most of his career as a journalist in the Canberra Press Gallery, the idea of having tickets on himself is a non-story.
When he won his first ACT Book of the Year in 2011, he said at the time: “It had such a positive effect on me, making me feel like I was a real writer.
“And I think it helped a few years later when I was struggling to write my first novel, the one that eventually became Scrublands. I applied for an ACT arts grant, and I believe having that Book of the Year prize on my CV helped me get that grant. It wasn’t a huge amount of money, but it allowed me to get six weeks off work and break the back of the novel.”
Since then, the writer hasn’t looked back. He now writes full-time, with his seventh novel, The Valley, to be published in October.
Although admitting he couldn’t imagine doing anything else – he was affected by the final round of redundancies in the media sackings of 2017 – he knows well that writing is a far from easy profession. You might write for a vast audience, but those who put their fingers to a laptop these days do so in isolation.
“When you’re writing, you get so immersed with what you’re doing, especially with a novel. Sometimes it’s hard to know if it’s any good, so getting an award like this is a real validation.”
He used to show his manuscripts to friends and family in the early days for their opinions, but with success, those days are long gone.
“I have the best editors and publishers now looking at my work, so I don’t need my friends and family to. Besides, they’re always likely to be really kind,” he joked.
How did he transition from working in the high-pressure Parliament House press gallery to redundancy?
“There was a conjunction of a couple of events at the time,” he said.
“I had submitted my manuscript for Scrublands and then started working for a politician for about three weeks. That job involved a lot of travelling, and my wife travelled a lot, too, and we had a daughter at home.
“Then, out of nowhere, I got this really big book deal – and since then, I’ve put out a book a year.”
With such an impressive record, is he a disciplined writer?
“No, but I am a great procrastinator,” he said.
“Because I don’t have a proper job, but my wife has, and our kids have grown up, I know I am a lot luckier than other writers who don’t have this chance.
“It also helps that I am addicted to writing,” he said. “I just love to lose myself in a story.”
ACT Arts Minister Tara Cheyne, announcing the 2024 ACT Book of the Year Award, said it was given for excellence in literature – and came with a $10,000 prize.
“Congratulations to best-selling crime fiction writer Chris Hammer, whose latest work, The Seven, is this year’s ACT Book of the Year,” Ms Cheyne said.
“The Seven truly keeps you in riveted suspense and is hard to put down.”
Chris Hammer signed copies of his book Seven in the Riverina last year, where the novel is loosely based. Photo: Supplied.
Ms Cheyne also congratulated this year’s other winners, including authors Ayesha Inoon and J Ashley-Smith, “whose highly commended works demonstrate the depth of their talent and skills”.
“This year’s shortlisted works by Paul Hetherington, Jackie French, and Mavis Kerinaiua and Laura Rademaker, exemplify the outstanding quality and the diversity of the nominated works this year.”
She said the 2024 judging panel had a far from easy job – “this task is never easy given the breadth of talent in Canberra’s writing community”.
The panel included Helen Ennis, T.R. Napper and Barrina South. In The Seven, the judges said Hammer demonstrated “total mastery of the crime genre”.
“From the first pages onwards, Hammer creates a thrilling narrative filled with suspense that immerses the reader in gripping, page-turning intrigue,” they said.
“Hammer conveys a beautiful sense of place in developing this quintessential Australian story, filled with compelling characters, who are poignantly reflective about their own lives.”
Seven is available at bookshops across the country.
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