The Eric Rolls Prize is a biennial prize for natural history writing in honour of the great Australian nature writer and natural historian, Eric Rolls.

Stanley and Kaisa Breeden are this year’s winners with their joint entry “Larry Comes to Bulurru”. The press release describes their essay as ‘a wonderful story of a love affair with a landscape and the plants and animals that share the territory. The narrator intersperses his text with the voice of his partner and her response to the forest’s speaking. Together the authors tell of the terrible invasion by Cyclone Larry. The cyclone was like a living thing ─ a huge dragon that roared and furied and screamed. Their story ends with the wonder of the forest’s resilience and the landscape’s slow renewal’.

Highly commended: Meryl Parker  for her essay, “The Environmental Dingo,” and Tanya Massy for her untitled essay on birds.

Special Commendation:  Duncan Merrilees for a posthumous essay, “How Old is Old?”

The closing date for the 2012 prize is yet  to be announced but you can find out more and download an entry form by going to the Watermark website.