Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Writing

The winning entries of the Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Writing will be published in an anthology and announced at an event on Saturday 28 May at the Diamond Valley Library.

Join us for the event via livestream on Council’s YouTube Channel and Arts and Culture Facebook page. 

The Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Writing (NPCW) is awarded every two years and builds on the Shire's strong tradition of supporting contemporary Australian writing. 

Entries are accepted in the following streams:

• Fiction - with open, local and youth categories
• A changing genre award - with open, local and youth categories. In 2022 that category is Poetry.

The competition awards the best work in each category

• The Alan Marshall Short Story Award is awarded to the best short story in the ‘open’ section.
• A Mayor's Award may also be awarded.

2022 shortlists announced

We are pleased to announce the shortlists for this year’s Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Writing. The quality of writing we received across youth, local and open categories was extraordinary, and the involvement of all entrants, whether shortlisted or not, is greatly appreciated.

Shortlisted entries for the 2022 Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Writing are:

Trigger Warning: A title in these lists may be disturbing or upsetting to some readers.

 

Congratulations to all shortlisted writers.

The winning entries will be published in an anthology and announced at an event on Saturday 28 May. The NPCW is presented in association with Yarra Plenty Regional Library. 

2022 NPCW judges

Alan Marshall Short Story Prize judges

Tim Richards
Tim Richards is a Melbourne-based writer, script consultant and screenwriting teacher. He is the author of three story collections. His latest book is Approximate Life: The Prince and Other Stories (Ligature, 2022).

Bec Kavanagh
Bec Kavanagh is a Melbourne-based writer and academic. She has written fiction and non-fiction for a number of publications including Westerly, Meanjin, Review of Australian Fiction and the Shuffle anthology.

Nillumbik Prize Contemporary Writing – Poetry judges

Cassandra Atherton
Cassandra Atherton is an international expert on the prose poetry form and an award winning prose poet. Cassandra has authored and edited over thirty critical and creative books and has been invited to edit twelve special editions of leading refereed journals.

Paul Hetherington
Paul Hetherington is a distinguished Australian poet and has published 16 full-length collections of poetry and prose poetry. He has won or been nominated for more than 30 national and international awards and competitions, recently winning the 2021 Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize. Paul is Professor of Writing at the University of Canberra, head of the International Poetry Studies Institute (IPSI) and joint founding editor of the journal Axon: Creative Explorations.

2020 NPCW winners

Congratulations to the 2020 NPCW winners:

• Alan Marshall Short Story Award (Best work of fiction - open category)
  Dominic Amerena - Show Don't Tell
  
  
• Best work of fiction - local
  Catherine Padmore - Work Experience

• Best work of fiction - youth
  Irene Lu - Hiraeth

• Best work of creative non-fiction - open
  Anna Jacobson - Songs from the Vault

• Best work of creative non-fiction - local
  Alessandra Prunotto -The Things We Leave Behind

The 2020 NPCW Anthology 2020 features all the winning pieces along with introductions from the category judges.

View the Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Writing Anthology 2020(PDF, 1MB)

Previous anthologies

• Literary Nillumbik Anthology of Writing 2018(PDF, 1MB)
• Literary Nillumbik Anthology of Writing 2017(PDF, 12MB)
• Literary Nillumbik Anthology of Writing 2016(PDF, 2MB)