Ellis wins 2022 Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize

Tracy Ellis has won the 2022 Australian Book Review (ABR) Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize for her story ‘Natural Wonder’.

Chosen from a shortlist of three announced in July, Ellis receives $6000. Nina Cullen placed second ($4000) for ‘Dog Park’, and C J Garrow placed third ($2500) for ‘Whale Fall’.

In ‘Natural Wonder’, the narrator watches over three boys—her son and his two cousins—as they spend the first days of a new year playing at a beach on Sydney harbour.

Prize judges Amy Baillieu, Melinda Harvey and John Kinsella said the story is ‘remarkable for its quietness, acknowledgement of knotty feelings, and the room it makes for small miracles’.

The three shortlisted stories appear in the August issue of ABR.

Camilla Chaudhary won the 2021 Jolley Prize for her story ‘The Enemy Asyndeton’.

Category: Awards Local news