Murray awarded 2024 Boundless mentorship

Bardi writer Kalem Murray is the winner of the 2024 Boundless Indigenous Writer’s Mentorship, presented by Text Publishing and Writing NSW with the support of the First Nations Australia Writers Network (FNAWN) and Booktopia.

Murray has won the mentorship for his speculative fiction manuscript ‘Regression’, which ‘explores the trope of returning home, and is set in a small town amid bizarre and unsettling disappearances of the townspeople’, according to a statement from Text. He will be mentored by Mykaela Saunders.

Murray has worked in radio and television for decades. His first story, ‘Curtain Call’, was recognised by the National Indigenous Story Awards, and in 2022, Murray featured in the anthology This All Come Back Now (UQP), which was edited by Saunders.

Boundless judge John Morrissey, who was the 2020 Boundless mentee and author of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award–shortlisted Firelight (Text), said ‘Regression’ was the standout manuscript: ‘I felt it brought together different elements in an interesting way and I was genuinely quite curious to see what direction the narrative would take.’

The Boundless Mentorship is awarded annually to an emerging Indigenous writer ‘who has made substantial progress on a fiction or nonfiction writing project’. The winner is paired with an established Indigenous writer for a structured year-long mentorship as they develop their manuscript.

The 2021 Boundless winner, Lenora Thaker, is due to be published by Text in 2025. The winner of the 2023 Boundless mentorship was Wiradjuri writer and filmmaker Edoardo Crismani.

Category: Awards Local news