Heyman wins 2017 Copyright Agency Fellowship

Kathryn Heyman has won the Copyright Agency’s 2017 fellowship for mid-to-late career authors, worth $80,000.

Heyman received the fellowship for her forthcoming memoir Words to Live By. The memoir explores how Heyman ‘ran away from her life and ended up lost in the middle of the Timor Sea with only the tools of fiction to help her reinvent herself and create an authentic life’ following a ‘traumatic sexual assault—and a more traumatic trial—at the age of 20’.

The judging panel, comprising Stuart Glover, Elizabeth McMahon and Peter Rose, said Heyman’s project was ‘original and deeply personal’, and that they believe it ‘will become a major work of significance to a broad contemporary readership’. ‘Her writing is both absorbing and inspiring and the submitted sample left us wanting to read more,’ they said.

Heyman is the author of six novels, including her latest Storm and Grace (Allen & Unwin).

This is the third year the Copyright Agency has awarded the fellowship. The previous winners are Mark Henshaw in 2015 and Melissa Lucashenko in 2016.

Category: Local news