‘Overland’ Victoria University Short Story Prize 2016 winners announced

The winners of the 2016 ‘Overland’ Victoria University Short Story Prize for New and Emerging Writers has been announced.

The first prize, worth $8000, was awarded to Melbourne writer Julia Tulloh-Harper for ‘Broad hatchet’, the story of a young woman who ‘ventures alone into the Australian forest to build a slab hut—but she soon learns that the wilderness cannot necessarily provide the solace that she seeks’.

The judges—Overland editor Jacinda Woodhead, Overland fiction editor Jennifer Mills and Victoria University’s Alison Whan—said the winning story ‘takes the classic Australian short story—pioneer mythology, man versus landscape—and reshapes it’.

The two runners-up were Ben Walter for ‘All hollows’ and Ashleigh Synnott for ‘The acorn of sadness’.

The three stories will be published in the next issue of Overland. For more information about the winners, visit the website here. To see the full shortlist, click here.

Category: Local news