Upcoming Opportunities 2022

The Daisy Utemorrah Award

This annual award is presented to an Indigenous writer for an unpublished manuscript of junior or YA fiction.

The Daisy Utemorrah Award is open to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers currently living in Australia. Generously supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund and the State Government of Western Australia, and proudly presented within the WA Premier’s Book Awards, the winner receives $15,000 and a publishing contract with Magabala Books.

‘The Daisy Utemorrah Award gave me a space to create. I had the time to shape the story. It was a career highlight. Writing Bindi was soul work.’ 

– Kirli Saunders, inaugural winner of the Daisy Utemorrah Award 2019

Applications close > 30 March 2022

Deadlines extended

Deadlines have been extended for both the Neil Sidney Short Story Prize and the Judith Wright Poetry Prize – to Friday 7th January, 2022!

Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize

Supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation, and named after the late Neilma Gantner, the Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize 2021 seeks excellent short fiction of up to 3000 words themed around the notion of ‘travel’; imaginative, creative and literary interpretations are strongly encouraged. This competition is open to all writers, nationally and internationally, at any stage of their writing career.

The winning story will receive a $5000 first prize and be published in Overland’s Autumn 2022 issue. Two runners-up will each receive $750 and be published at Overland online in 2022. Our judges are Alice Robinson, Julie Koh and Mykaela Saunders.

Judith Wright Poetry Prize

Established in 2007 and supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation, the Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets 2021 seeks outstanding poetry by writers who have published no more than one collection of poems under their own name (i.e. writers who’ve had zero collections published, or one solo collection published). It remains one of the richest prizes for emerging poets, and is open to poets anywhere in the world. Our judges are Keri Glastonbury, Toby Fitch and Grace Yee.

In 2021, the major prize is $6000, with a second prize of $2000 and a third prize of $1000. All three winners will be published in Overland’s Autumn 2022 issue.