Rewell wins 2023 Furphy Literary Award

The winners of the 2023 Furphy Literary Award have been announced.

Journalist and copywriter Jen Rewell won this year’s $15,000 award for ‘Away to Me’, which judges described as an ‘uplifting and offbeat love story’. Rewell was presented with a cheque for $15,000 at the ceremony. In addition to the cash prize, Rewell will see her story published in the 2023 Furphy Anthology, to be published by Hardie Grant, and will be invited to a residency at La Trobe University to work on her writing.

This year’s judging panel was made up of Anson Cameron, Margaret Hickey, John Harms, Stephanie Holt, Thornton McCamish and John Kerr. Cameron said Rewell’s winning entry was ‘a love story, written with a light touch’. ‘It’s funny. The language is clear, and the author has a close knowledge of the rural world that Joseph Furphy would have recognised and enjoyed. It’s populated with rodeo clowns and decorated with CB radios atop kitchen fridges … a woman feeds her lover steamed lemon curd pudding. I salivated freely while reading it. But above all the story has a pigheaded refusal to conform to reality. Just when you think it might be headed for a clichéd gloom it ambushes you with fabulism and, perish the thought, happiness.’

A journalist and copywriter, Rewell returned to her early love of creative writing in 2020, winning a mentorship in the Emerging Writers Program run by the Fellowship of Australian Writers WA. She lives in Perth and is currently working on her first novel.

Second place, worth $3000, went to Eugenie Pusenjak for ‘The Drey’, and third place, worth $2000, went to 2022 third place winner Natalie Vella for ‘The Lucky Country’.

Originally established in 1993 as the Joseph Furphy Commemorative Literary Prize, which was open to Goulburn Valley residents, the award was relaunched as a national prize in 2020 and is administered by the Furphy family in Victoria.

Last year’s winner was Cate Kennedy for ‘Art and Life’.

For more information on the award, see the Furphy website.

Category: Awards Local news