Prime Minister’s Literary Awards 2025 shortlists announced

Creative Australia has announced the titles shortlisted for the 2025 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.

Shortlisted titles in each category are:

Fiction 

• Always Will Be: Stories of Goori Sovereignty from the Futures of the Tweed (Mykaela Saunders, UQP)
• Highway 13 (Fiona McFarlane, A&U)
• Juice (Tim Winton, Hamish Hamilton)
• Rapture (Emily Maguire, A&U)
• Theory & Practice (Michelle de Kretser, Text)

 Nonfiction 

• Cactus Pear for My Beloved (Samah Sabawi, Penguin)
• Deep Water (James Bradley, Hamish Hamilton)
• Fragile Creatures: A Memoir (Khin Myint, Black Inc.)
• Mean Streak (Rick Morton, Fourth Estate)
• The Pulling (Adele Dumont, Scribe)

 Australian history 

• Australia in 100 Words (Amanda Laugesen, NewSouth)
• Critical Care: Nurses on the Frontline of Australia’s AIDS Crisis (Geraldine Fela, UNSW Press)
• Näku Dhäruk The Bark Petitions (Clare Wright, Text)
• Warra Warra Wai (Darren Rix & Craig Cormick, Scribner)
• The Wild Reciter: Poetry and Popular Culture in Australia 1890 to the Present (Peter Kirkpatrick, Melbourne University Publishing)

 Poetry 

• Companions, Ancestors, Inscriptions (Peter Boyle, Vagabond)
• Makarra (Barrina South, Recent Work Press)
• The Other Side of Daylight: New and Selected Poems (David Brooks, UQP)
• rock flight (Hasib Hourani, Giramondo)
• That Galloping Horse (Petra White, Shearsman Books)

Children’s literature 

• A Leaf Called Greaf (Kelly Canby, Fremantle)
• Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Tooth Fairy (And Some Things You Didn’t) (Briony Stewart, Lothian)
• Leo and Ralph (Peter Carnavas, UQP)
• Raymaŋgirrbuy dhäwu, When I was a little girl (Kylie Gatjawarrawuy Mununggurr, Magabala)
• We Live in a Bus (Dave Petzold, T&H)

 Young adult 

• Anomaly (Emma Lord, Affirm)
• The Anti-Racism Kit: A Guide for High School Students (Jinyoung Kim & Sabina Patawaran, HGCP)
• The Invocations (Krystal Sutherland, Penguin)
• My Family and Other Suspects (Kate Emery, A&U Children’s)
• Thunderhead (Sophie Beer, A&U Children’s).

In a statement, Creative Australia said 645 entries were received across the six award categories.

The winners and shortlisted authors will share in a tax-free prize pool of $600,000. Each shortlisted author will receive $5000, with the winner of each category receiving $80,000.

The Prime Minister’s Literary Awards acknowledge the contribution of Australian literature to the nation’s cultural and intellectual life. This is the first year that the awards will be delivered under Writing Australia.

Newly appointed Writing Australia director Wenona Byrne said, ‘The awards are a key part of our commitment to supporting the literature sector, and we are proud to celebrate these works as part of a new era in Australian writing.’

The winners of the 2025 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards will be announced on 29 September at the National Library of Australia in Canberra.

More information on the shortlists, including judging panel comments, is available on the Creative Australia website.

Category: Awards Local news