Helen Garner learns of $207,000 literary prize win after checking junk email

Australian author assumed an email saying she’d won the Windham-Campbell prize was a hoax and ‘nearly keeled over’ after learning it was real

Australian writer Helen Garner first learned she was the recipient of a US$150,000 (A$207,633) literary prize after reading an email in her junk folder.

Garner told the Sydney Morning Herald that when she read the email sent from someone at Yale University who had “good news” and wanted her phone number, she thought it was a hoax. Only after checking with her publisher and contacting the university was she able to confirm she had, indeed, won their Windham-Campbell prize for writers.

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