Martin wins 2026 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship

The 2026 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship has been awarded to Jennifer Martin, who receives $20,000 for her proposed biography of Australian journalist Eva Sommer.

In 1956 then 22-year-old Sommer beat a field of experienced men to win first prize in Australia’s first national prize for journalism, the Walkley Awards. When Sommer died in 2019, aged 84, this “principled, courageous and complex daughter of Jewish immigrants who fought to live and love on her terms had been forgotten”, said the announcement.

Della Rowley, sister of the late Hazel Rowley, said, “The judges loved Jennifer’s approach and fluid writing style which brings Eva’s remarkable story to life.”

Fellowship judge Clare Wright said: “There couldn’t be a more fitting or laudable winner of the final Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship than Jennifer Martin, with her finely wrought, deeply researched resurrection of a woman whose remarkable life and achievement have been lost to masculinist myth-making about the history and culture of Australian journalism. I simply can’t wait to get my hands on this biography. I expect my response will be mirrored by that of other readers: why weren’t we told?”

This is the final year of the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship, said Rowley. “After receiving a record number of applications we also chose three highly commended recipients, awarding them $10,000 each.”

Highly commended were:

• Ashleigh Wilson for a biography of Barry Humphries
• Monique Rooney for a biography of writer Ruth Park
• Theodore Ell for a biography of poet Les Murray.

A shortlist of nine writers was released in January.

The Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship was established to commemorate the life and writing of Hazel Rowley and has enabled biographers and writers of memoir to complete and publish their works. Michelle Staff won the 2025 fellowship for a proposed joint biography of sisters Bessie Rischbieth and Olive Evans. Previous winners include Maxine Beneba Clarke for The Hate Race (Hachette, 2016), Stephanie Steggall for Interestingly Enough… : The Life of Tom Keneally (Nero, 2015) and Matthew Lamb for Frank Moorhouse: Strange paths (Knopf, 2023).

More information is available on the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship website.

Category: Awards Local news