Staff wins 2025 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship

Feminist historian Michelle Staff has been announced as winner of the 2025 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship, worth $20,000, at a ceremony at Adelaide Writers’ Week.

Staff was awarded the fellowship for her proposed joint biography of sisters Bessie Rischbieth and Olive Evans, two influential activist women in Australia’s feminist, social and political history during the early 20th century.

‘The judges loved Michelle’s approach to her subjects,’ said Della Rowley, sister of Hazel Rowley. ‘Their advocacy for women’s rights had long-lasting effects. The entwined story of these sisters is an important one.’

‘The judges all agreed that Michelle Staff’s application was an outstanding choice,’ said fellowship judge Clare Wright. ‘Michelle’s project thrilled us, creatively and conceptually, as it seeks to resurrect the historical importance of Bessie Rischbieth, a woman who dedicated her life’s energy and resources to ensuring that women’s political activism was not lost to history. But more than that, investigating the lives of the two sisters – Bessie and Olive, one a childless widow, one a mother of six – promises a nuanced reading of both the random and systemic forces that have shaped women’s lives.’

Two writers from the shortlist were announced as Highly Commended:

• Monique Rooney, for a biography of Aotearoa New Zealand-born Australian writer Ruth Park
• Jennifer Martin, for a biography of Australian journalist Eva Sommer.

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 fellowship was judged by Wright, Christos Tsiolkas, Della Rowley and Lynn Buchanan, and is administered in partnership with Writers Victoria.

Now in its 14th year, the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship was established to commemorate the life and writing of Hazel Rowley. Organisers said the fellowship ‘has a significant track record in enabling biographers and writers of memoir to complete and publish their works’.

Category: Local news