The all-female finalists for the Miles Franklin Literary Award are Carrie Tiffany for Mateship with Birds (Picador), Michelle de Kretser for Questions of Travel (Allen & Unwin), Romy Ash for Floundering (Text Publishing), Annah Faulkner for The Beloved (Picador) and Drusilla Modjeska for The Mountain (Vintage).

The prize is awarded for the novel judged to be of the highest literary merit which “must present Australian life in any of its phases” in line with the wishes of the late Miles Franklin, one of Australia’s iconic female authors.

Speaking on behalf of The Trust Company, which manages the estate of Miles Franklin and has been Trustee of the award since it was first awarded in 1957, Simon Lewis said, “The shortlist demonstrates how strong Australia’s pipeline of female literary talent really is, as witnessed with last year’s Miles Franklin winner, Anna Funder, as well as by the growing number of first time female authors included in the long and shortlists in recent years.”

Most reporting of the announcement has focused on comparisons with the Stella Prize, a new literary prize celebrating great books by Australian women, which Tiffany recently won.

The Stella Prize is also named after Stella Maria “Miles” Franklin.

Susan Wyndham in the Age said Australia’s major fiction award had “fought back from its recent reputation as a male-dominated ‘sausage fest’.”

On Crikey Bethanie Blanchardreferred to the establishment of the Stella Prize as a reclamation of a prize which had gone to male authors far too many times since its founding.

“It’s hard not to see a rivalry between the two prizes now, with the Miles Franklin clearly on the back foot since the accusations of gender bias.”

Miles Franklin award judge Richard Neville said, “People will probably think this is a riposte to the Stella Prize. But I’ve judged this for four years, including the infamous year of the ‘sausage fest’, and we always try to view the books as literature. We felt the books on the shortlist selected themselves.”

Blanchard went on to say, “Perhaps there will ultimately be a melding of the Miles Franklin with the Stella; one day the two versions of her self will be put back together and she will regain her full name.”

The Wheeler Centre reported that reviewer Kerryn Goldsworthy, a former Miles Franklin judge, said a backlash might be on its way “from certain affronted men who’ve never got their heads around the concept of the level playing field, and will complain about there being no male writers on the list. My answer to them would be, ‘Miffed, are you? Good, now you know how we felt.’”

Romy Ash told the ABC of the encouragement she found in the shortlisting.

She said she believed there would always be a demand for books despite a shift toward e-books and digital downloads.

“I like to take a real positive look at things,” she said. “Maybe the big chains of bookstores might close but I think there’s always a place for a really beautiful local bookshop. I think people will always buy books.”

The winner will be announced on Wednesday June 19 in Canberra at the National Library of Australia and will receive $60,000.

Twitter competition

The Trustee is encouraging literary lovers to tweet a review of one or all of the shortlisted.

For a chance to win a prize readers can post a synopsis of their favourite 2013 Miles Franklin shortlisted book on Twitter.

Entries are open from 9 am May 1 to 5 pm (AEST) June 3. The winner will be announced on Twitter on June 5.