ACT Literary Awards 2025 winners announced
MARION ACT has announced the winners of the 2025 ACT Literary Awards.
The winners in each category, chosen from shortlists announced earlier this month, are:
Children’s literature
- Big, Big Love (Lisa Fuller, illus by Samantha Campbell, Magabala)
Children’s literature (middle-grade)
- Tigg and the Bandicoot Bushranger (Jackie French, HarperCollins)
Children’s literature (YA fiction)
- The Unexpected Mess of it All (Gabrielle Tozer, HarperCollins)
Fiction
- Compassion (Julie Janson, Magabala)
Nonfiction (joint-winners)
- An Unexpected Life (Vesna Cvjetićanin, self-published)
- Warra Warra Wai (Darren Rix & Craig Cormick, Scribner)
Poetry shortlist
- Makarra (Barrina South, Recent Work Press).
The 2025 judges are Jacqueline de Rose-Ahern and Will Kostakis (children’s literature), Adrian Caesar and Ayesha Inoon (fiction), Katrina Marson and Shannyn Palmer (nonfiction), and Paul Hetherington and Maya Hodge (poetry).
Winners in each category will receive $500 in prize money.
Also announced were winners of several other writing and literary awards, including:
June Shenfield National Poetry Awards
- First place: ‘a metabolism of self’ by Krystle Herdy
- Second place: ‘This is a Recipe’ by Elizabeth Walton
- Third place: ‘Building’ by Josephine Shevchenko
Anne Edgeworth Emerging Writer’s Fellowships
- Elisa Cristallo ($2,450)
- Matthew Crowe ($2,500)
- Deborah Huff-Horwood ($1,000)
- First place: ‘As a Matter of Great Importance’ by Alisha Brown ($5000)
- Second place: ‘Rosalie’ by Cate Furey ($2000)
Canberra Airport Recognition Award for Literacy Inclusion
- Danny Corvini ($2000)
The Marion Halligan Award
- Flora: Australia’s Most Curious Plants (Tania McCartney, NLA).
Last year’s winners included Girl in a Pink Dress (Kylie Needham, Hamish Hamilton) for the fiction category and Bennelong & Phillip: A history unravelled (Kate Fullagar, Scribner) for the nonfiction category.
More information about the awards is available on the MARION ACT website.
Category: Awards Local news
