Melbourne Prize announces new $7500 award for early-career published authors

The Melbourne Prize Trust has announced a new award for early-career authors, worth $7500.

The Readings Residency Award is open to early-career published authors who are based in Victoria, writing across all genres. The winner will receive a $5000 cash prize, a residency at the Norma Redpath Studio in Melbourne’s Carlton and a $2500 travel voucher from Qantas.

The Melbourne Prize Trust will administer the new award, which is supported by Readings, the University of Melbourne and Qantas.

The Readings Residency Award brings this year’s total prize pool to more than $100,000, including the triennial Melbourne Prize for Literature, worth $60,000; the Best Writing Award, worth $30,000; and the $4000 Civic Choice Award, which will be awarded to one finalist across all three award categories and is supported by publisher Hardie Grant.

This year’s judges are writers Andrea Goldsmith, Nam Le and Khalid Warsame, Melbourne Writers Festival artistic director Marieke Hardy and Wheeler Centre director Michael Williams.

Entries for all three prizes are open now and will close on 9 July. The finalists will be announced on 12 September, with recipients announced on 14 November.

The Melbourne Prize for Literature is a triennial award given to a Victorian author whose body of published work has made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature and to cultural and intellectual life.

For more information, see the Melbourne Prize Trust website.

Category: Local news