# Victorian Premier's Prize for Drama

The Victorian Premier's Prize for Drama is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. The winner of this category prize vies with four other category winners (fiction; non-fiction; poetry; young adult literature) for overall Victorian Prize for Literature.
Until 2012, the award was called the Louis Esson Prize for Drama.

## Victorian Premier's Prize for Drama

Winners of the Overall Victorian Prize for Literature have a blue ribbon.
Victorian Premier's Prize for Drama winners and finalists :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 2012 | Lally Katz | A Golem Story | Winner |
| 2012 | Aidan Fennessy | National | Finalist |
| 2012 | Daniel Keene | Boxman | Finalist |
| 2014 | Patricia Cornelius | Savages | Winner |
| 2014 | Kate Grenville | The Secret River | Finalist |
| 2014 | Anne-Louise Sarks and Kate Mulvany | Medea | Finalist |
| 2015 | Angus Cerini | Resplendence | Winner |
| 2015 | Alison Croggon | Mayakovsky | Finalist |
| 2015 | Daniel Keene | The Long Way Home | Finalist |
| 2016 | Mary Anne Butler | Broken | Winner |
| 2016 | Angela Betzien | Mortido | Finalist |
| 2016 | Patricia Cornelius | SHIT | Finalist |
| 2016 | Declan Greene | I am a Miracle | Highly commended |
| 2017 | Leah Purcell | The Drover's Wife | Winner |
| 2017 | Gita Bezard | Girl Shut Your Mouth | Finalist |
| 2017 | Zoë Coombs Marr | Trigger Warning | Finalist |
| 2018 | Michele Lee | Rice | Winner |
| 2018 | Nakkiah Lui | Black is the New White | Finalist |
| 2018 | Kate Mulvany | The Rasputin Affair | Finalist |
| 2019 | Kendall Feaver | The Almighty Sometimes | Winner |
| 2019 | Michele Lee | Going Down | Finalist |
| 2019 | Ursula Yovich and Alana Valentine | Barbara and the Camp Dogs | Finalist |
| 2020 | S. Shakthidharan (and associated writer Eamon Flack) | Counting and Cracking | Winner |
| 2020 | Samah Sabawi | Them | Finalist |
| 2020 | Meyne Wyatt | City of Gold | Finalist |
| 2021 | Angus Cerini | Wonnangatta | Winner |
| 2021 | Dan Giovannoni | SLAP. BANG. KISS. | Finalist |
| 2021 | Andrea James | Sunshine Super Girl: The Evonne Goolagong Story | Finalist |
| 2021 | Kendall Feaver | Wherever She Wanders | Highly Commend |
| 2021 | Benjamin Law | Torch the Place | Highly Commend |
| 2022 | Dylan Van Den Berg | Milk | Winner |
| 2022 | Steve Perie | Return to the Dirt | Finalist |
| 2022 | Melissa Reeves | Archimedes War | Finalist |
| 2022 | Andrea James & Catherine Ryan | Dogged | Highly commend |
| 2023 | John Harvey | The Return | Winner |
| 2023 | Merlynn Tong | Golden Blood | Finalist |
| 2023 | Dylan Van Den Berg | Whitefella Yella Tree | Finalist |
| 2024 | Declan Furber Gillick | Jacky | Finalist |
| 2024 | S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack | The Jungle and the Sea | Finalist |
| 2024 | Christos Tsiolkas and Dan Giovannoni | Loaded | Finalist |
| 2025 | Nathan Maynard | 37 | Winner |
| 2025 | Emily Sheehan | Frame Narrative | Finalist |
| 2025 | Angus Cerini | Into the Shimmering World | Finalist |

## Louis Esson Prize for Drama

Louis Esson Prize for Drama winners and finalists :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 1985 | David Allen | Cheapside | Winner |
| 1986 | Janis Balodis | Too Young for Ghosts | Winner |
| 1987 | Ben Lewin | A Matter of Convenience | Winner |
| 1988 | Alma De Groen | The Rivers of China | Winner |
| 1989 | Daniel Keene | Silent Partner | Winner |
| 1990 | Sam Sejavka | The Hive | Winner |
| 1991 | Katherine Thomson | Diving for Pearls | Winner |
| 1992 | Jocelyn Moorhouse | Proof | Winner |
| 1993 | Michael Gurr | Sex Diary of an Infidel | Winner |
| 1994 | Louis Nowra | The Temple | Winner |
| 1995 | Barry Dickins | Remembering Ronald Ryan | Winner |
| 1996 | Joanna Murray-Smith | Honour | Winner |
| 1997 | Michael Gurr | Jerusalem | Winner |
| 1998 | Daniel Keene | Every Minute, Every Hour, Every Day | Winner |
| 1999 | Catherine Zimdahl | Clark in Sarajevo | Winner |
| 2000 | Hannie Rayson | Life After George | Winner |
| 2001 | Peta Murray | Salt | Winner |
| 2002 | Andrew Bovell | Holy Day | Winner |
| 2003 | Joanna Murray-Smith | Rapture | Winner |
| 2004 | Stephen Sewell | Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America | Winner |
| 2005 | Melissa Reeves | The Spook | Winner |
| 2006 | Stephen Sewell | Three Furies: Scenes from the Life of Francis Bacon | Winner |
| 2007 | Jane Bodie | A Single Act | Winner |
| 2007 | Kit Lazaroo | Asylum | Finalist |
| 2007 | Stephen Sewell | It Just Stopped | Finalist |
| 2008 | Andrew Bovell | When the Rain Stops Falling | Winner |
| 2008 | Wesley Enoch | The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table | Finalist |
| 2008 | Michael Gow | Toy Symphony | Finalist |
| 2009 | Lally Katz | Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd | Winner |
| 2009 | Paul Galloway | Realism | Finalist |
| 2009 | Damien Millar | The Modern International Dead | Finalist |
| 2010 | Tom Holloway | And No More Shall We Part | Winner |
| 2010 | Declan Greene | Moth | Finalist |
| 2010 | Melissa Reeves | Furious Mattress | Finalist |
| 2011 | Patricia Cornelius | Do not go gentle… | Winner |
| 2011 | Jane Montgomery Griffiths | Sappho…in 9 fragments | Finalist |
| 2011 | Raimondo Cortese | Intimacy | Finalist |