Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship 2025 shortlist announced

Writers Victoria has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship.

The shortlist includes nine writers:

• Jennifer Martin, ‘writing about Australian journalist Eva Sommer, inaugural winner of the Walkley award’
• Jo Oliver, ‘for a biography of Australian artist Isobel Rae’
• Julienne van Loon, ‘for a series of biographical essays about contemporary women scientists, “Women of the Future”’
• Lucas Jordan, ‘writing “Touching the dream-time”, a biography of two Arrernte and Irish-Australian families in the Northern Territory’
• Melanie Saward, ‘writing “With the Feathers,” a memoir and family history exploring connection to Country and culture, family, motherhood and grief’
• Michelle Scott Tucker, ‘for a biography of Louisa Lawson, newspaper proprietor, poet, suffragist and mother of Henry Lawson’
• Michelle Staff, ‘for a joint biography of feminist activists and sisters Bessie Rischbieth and Olive Evans’
• Monique Rooney, ‘for a biography of Australian writer Ruth Park’
• Yen Tran, ‘writing a memoir of her Vietnamese family who came to Australia as refugees’.

Established to commemorate the life and writing of biographer Hazel Rowley, the fellowship encourages Australian authors to aim for ‘a high standard’ of biography writing.

This year’s fellowship will be judged by writers Clare Wright and Christos Tsiolkas, along with Della Rowley and Lynn Buchanan, Rowley’s sister and close friend respectively. The winning writer will receive $20,000.

Writers Victoria CEO Julie Skate said: ‘Writers Victoria is proud to be part of the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship, supporting Australian writers in their creative pursuits. This fellowship is both an enduring legacy and a meaningful tribute to Hazel’s passion for biography.’

The 2024 recipient was Kate Fullagar for her biography ‘The Secret Life of Marguerite Wolters’, about an 18th-century spy mistress whose espionage work seems to have contributed significantly to the British decision in 1786 to establish a penal colony in New South Wales.

This year’s recipient will be announced at Adelaide Writers’ Week on Wednesday 5 March, following the Hazel Rowley Memorial lecture, featuring Matthew Lamb in conversation with Wright about his biography of Frank Moorhouse. More information about the fellowship is available on the Writers Victoria website.

Category: Local news