UWA Publishing launches unpublished manuscript prize

UWA Publishing, in partnership with Copyright Agency and 720 ABC Perth, has launched a new award for an unpublished manuscript.

The Dorothy Hewett Award, named after the Australian novelist, poet and radical, is open to manuscripts of fiction, narrative nonfiction and poetry ‘inclusive of hybrid genres’. The award also stipulates that the manuscripts ‘should have a connection to Western Australia’ through ‘landscape, people, history, the residence or birthplace of the author, and so on’.

The prize will be judged by UWA publishing director Terri-ann White; poet and niece of Dorothy Hewett, Lucy Dougan; and Melbourne-based academic and writer David Carlin; and the winner will receive a cash prize of $10,000 and a publishing contract with UWA Publishing.

In a statement, organisers said the award has been established in response to the WA government’s decision to cut funding and move the WA Premier’s Book Awards to a biennial format.

Applications open on 1 August. A shortlist will be released on 11 December and the winner will be announced during the Perth Writers Festival in February 2016. For more information, visit the website here.

Category: Local news