2025 Shalom Collective Australian Jewish Writer Awards shortlist
The shortlists for the 2025 Shalom Collective Australian Jewish Writer Awards have been announced.
The shortlisted writers and their titles are:
The Leslie and Sophie Caplan Award for Jewish Nonfiction ($10,000)
- Anna Jacobson for How to Knit a Human (NewSouth)
- Jayne Persian for Fascists in Exile (Routledge)
- John Safran for Squat (Penguin)
- Michael Visontay for Noble Fragments (Scribe)
- Jana Vytrhlik for Treasures of Old Jewish Sydney (Longueville Media)
The Jewish Independent Young Jewish Writers Award ($5000)
- Ellie Bouhadana for Ellie’s Table (Hardie Grant)
- Dassi Erlich with Ellen Whinnett for In Bad Faith (Hachette)
- Anna Jacobson for How to Knit a Human (NewSouth)
The Szymon (Simon) Klitenik Award for Jewish Fiction ($5,000)
- Shelley Davidow for The Girl with the Violin (HQ)
- Joanne Fedler for The Whale’s Last Song (Fourth Estate)
- Linda Margolin Royal for The Star on the Grave (Affirm)
- Jonathan Seidler for All the Beautiful Things You Love (Macmillan).
The awards aim ‘to inspire and support current and future Australian Jewish authors, and to promote their writing to wide audiences’, said organisers.
Deputy director of programs Anna Stern said, ‘This year’s shortlists are a captivating reflection of the strength, breadth and creativity of contemporary Jewish Australian writing and research.’
The winners will be announced on 24 August 2025 at an awards ceremony where winners of the Edith Hausmann Award for Jewish Playwrights aged 18-45 ($10,000) and the Rosalind Sharbanee Meyer Award for Young Jewish Storytellers aged 18-35 for short stories and poetry will also be announced.
More information is available the Shalom Collective website.
Category: Awards Local news
