Royalle wins 2018 Red Room Poetry fellowship

Poet and performer Candy Royalle has won the 2018 Red Room Poetry fellowship.

Royalle was chosen from a shortlist of 11 poets. The prize is worth $10,000 in total, including residency and travel assistance for Royalle to undertake ‘an intensive period of creative development’. She receives a $5000 stipend, a $1000 commission to create a number of poems inspired by an existing Red Room project, a two-week residency at Bundanon Trust, and opportunities to present up to three paid poetry workshops and a public address.

Red Room will also award commissions to the other 10 shortlisted poets.

The judges said: ‘Candy’s objectives were extremely well expressed, offered significant outcomes for poetry community beyond her personal projects, and was backed by her bolshie philosophical approach—“Poetry is Power”. Candy’s strong belief that poetry can provide a platform for silenced voices so that everyone can tell their stories in ways that are both cathartic and creatively valid, won us over.’

Red Room Poetry established the fellowship in 2017 to ‘foster poetic and professional development of an individual within the wider poetic community’.

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, Ali Cobby Eckermann won the inaugural Red Room Poetry Fellowship in 2017.

For more information, visit the Red Room Poetry website.

Category: Awards Local news