Tasmanian Writers’ Centre: Inaugural Emerging Tasmanian Indigenous Writers Award

Tasmanian Writers’ Centre
The Tasmanian Writers’ Centre is delighted to announce the inaugural Emerging Tasmanian Indigenous Writers Award as part of 2017 Hidden Stories and the 2017 Tasmanian Writers & Readers Festival.

Tasmanian Elders, Dr Patsy Cameron and puralia meenamatta (Jim Everett) said they are thrilled to see this new writing award established. “It will offer emerging Tasmanian Indigenous writers the vital support they need to establish their voices as upcoming Tasmanian writers,” puralia meenamatta said.

This award is open to all emerging Tasmanian Indigenous writers aged 16 and over. Entries can be: a selection of poems or songs, a selection of short fiction or non-fiction (essay, autobiographical or biographical work), an excerpt from a play, illustrated stories, etc. All entries must be approximately 2,000 – 2,500 words for prose or scripts or 80 – 100 lines of poetry or song lyrics.

To be eligible, writers must not have had more than one full-length work* published by a third-party publisher, or one full-length play script produced by a professional theatre company. (* A full-length work may be a novel, graphic novel, play script, book-length work of literary non-fiction, or a collection of short stories, literary non-fiction essays or poems.)

The award is open from 15 June and entries are due by COB on Monday 31 July.

Awards will be presented on the evening of Thursday 14 September 2017 alongside the Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Prize Shortlist announcements at the Tasmanian Writers & Readers Festival Opening Night event.

The award includes prize money totaling $1,200 to be awarded at the discretion of the judges and professional support via membership to the Tasmanian Writers Centre.

Please visit the Tasmanian Writers Centre website ( www.taswriters.org/our-program/emerging-tasmanian-indigenous-writers-award ) to download an entry form or visit our office at the Tasmanian Writers Centre.