2024 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship shortlist announced

Writers Victoria has announced the shortlist for the 2024 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship.

The shortlist includes nine writers:

• Carolyn Dowley (WA), ‘for a biography of Sadie Canning, a Wongutha woman, a member of the Stolen Generations and Western Australia’s first Aboriginal nurse’
• Charlie Ward (NT), ‘writing about Jean Zakaria and her Australian-Indonesian family’
• Erik Jensen (Vic), ‘writing about Rafael Bonachela and the Sydney Dance Company’
• Helen Trinca (NSW), ‘for a biography of Australian author Elizabeth Harrower’
• Jane McCredie (NSW), ‘for a biography of Jane Eastment, one of the so-called “incorrigible prostitutes” sent to Tasmania in 1832’
• Kate Fullagar (ACT), ‘for a biography of Marguerite Wolters, an 18th-century spy mistress to empires and revolutionists’
• Michelle Scott Tucker (Vic), ‘for a biography of Louisa Lawson, newspaper proprietor, poet, suffragist and mother of Henry Lawson’
• Sophie Cull (USA/NSW), ‘writing about prison lawyer Calvin Duncan and his struggle for justice in the prison system in the USA’
• Suzanne Robinson (Vic), ‘for her proposal “Becoming Modern: Australian women composers in London between the wars”’.

Established to commemorate the life and writing of biographer Hazel Rowley, the fellowship encourages Australian authors to aim for ‘a high standard’ of biography writing.

This year’s fellowship will be judged by writers Clare Wright and Christos Tsiolkas, along with Hazel Rowley’s sister Della Rowley and Lynn Buchanan, Hazel Rowley’s close friend. The winning writer will receive $20,000.

Della Rowley said: ‘Ranging from spy mistresses, choreographers, composers, writers and a First Nations nursing pioneer to activists and champions of human rights, this year’s shortlist reflects an eclectic and diverse range of subjects.’ ‘It is exciting to see the varied approaches to biography among this year’s proposals.’

The 2023 fellowship recipient was writer and anthropologist Diane Bell, for her proposed biography of the relationship between Ngarrindjeri woman Louisa Karpany, née Kontinyeri (c1840–1921) and George Mason (1811–1876), sub-Protector of Aborigines at Wellington, South Australia. Nine recipients of the fellowship have had their books published to date.

This year’s recipient will be announced in an event at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne on 13 March, following the Hazel Rowley Memorial Lecture, which will feature 2021 recipient Mandy Sayer in conversation with Adolfo Aranjuez. More information about the fellowship is available on the Writers Victoria website.

Category: Awards Local news