Queer author to face Howard

The finalists for this year’s Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) have been announced, with prominent gay author and journalist Benjamin Law among the nominees for his literary debut, The Family Law.

“This is a nice award because it’s the publishers and bookstores who cast their vote — the people I love, being a book nerd myself,” Law told the Star Observer.

He faces fierce competition in the Biography of the Year category, including former prime minister John Howard for his memoir, Lazarus Rising.

“It gives me great joy to be nominated alongside John Howard,” he said.

“It’s very humbling because his biography is a big book and The Family Law is a much smaller scale book.”

Their nominations aren’t without a sense of irony given Law’s tempestuous relationship with Howard Government ministers, and their spouses.

The wife of Opposition Families, Housing and Human Services spokesman, Kevin Andrews, publicly attacked Law at the Family Relationship Services Australia (FRSA) conference on family diversity in Melbourne last year after he gave a 15-minute speech about having pride in diversity.

The writer said he was looking forward to battling it out with the former PM.

“On a very basic level it’s very funny that our books are in the same category,” he said.

Law’s next book, a look at queer culture in Asia currently under the working title of Gaysia, is set for release in the first half of 2012.

The TV rights to The Family Law were recently sold to Matchbox Pictures, the production company behind the ABC’s upcoming mini-series adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap.