UWAP expands Dorothy Hewett award

University of Western Australia Publishing (UWA Publishing) has announced it will expand the eligibility of the next Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript to all Australian writers and permanent residents, and will no longer require writers or manuscripts to have a ‘connection to Western Australia’.

UWA Publishing director Terri-ann White said the decision to expand the prize was made to reflect the ‘open and international’ scope of the other books on the publisher’s list.

‘We started with a WA-connection rule because we set up the award in response to the scrapping of our Premier’s Book Awards and it served us well for the first three years,’ said White. ‘But we didn’t want to push that too far: we see ourselves as open and international in scope (having published many books from other cultures and languages).’

White added, ‘We are also girding our loins in the face of reading more entries, but after all reading is our stock-in-trade.’

The publisher has also announced that UWA Indigenous Studies professor Elfie Shiosaki will replace Lucy Dougan on the judging panel in 2019. Shiosaki will join returning judges White and critic James Ley.

The Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript was established in 2015 and is open to manuscripts of fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry. The winner receives a $10,000 cash prize and a publishing contract.

Submissions for the 2019 award open on 15 May and close on 15 August. A shortlist will be announced in mid-November, and the winner will be announced at Perth Writers Week in 2019.

Category: Local news