WA author wins Creative Australia Fellowship

Western Australian author Annabel Smith has been selected as one of the 11 recipients of the 2012 Creative Australia Fellowships, awarded by the Australia Council for the Arts.

Smith is a fiction writer whose debut novel A New Map of the Universe (UWA Publishing, 2005) was shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards. Her second novel, Whisky Charlie Foxtrot, will be published by Fremantle Press in November.

The fellowships, which were announced in May, are made up of two categories: early career artists, valued at $60,000 over two years, of which Smith was a recipient, and established artists, valued at $100,000 over one year.

Smith plans to use the fellowship to create an ebook and interactive website for a new publication, The Ark, which explores ‘social decline in the wake of environmental catastrophe’. The project will ‘incorporate elements of other disciplines including theatre, animation, music and visual arts, and will generate new ways for people to consume, connect with and interpret fiction’.

Federal Minister for the Arts Simon Crean established the Creative Australia Artists Grants program in May 2011. The Creative Australia Fellowships is a new initiative under this five-year, $10 million program, which aims to support the professional development of artists working across Australia.

For more information on the fellowships and this year’s recipients, visit the Australia Council website here. 

Category: Local news