Carman named 2025 Judy Harris Writer-in-Residence Fellow
Luke Carman is the recipient of the 2025 Judy Harris Writer-in-Residence Fellowship, receiving $100,000 to support a year-long residency at the Charles Perkins Centre.
Based in Western Sydney, Carman is an author and essayist whose “extensive body of work explores Australia’s cultural margins, grapples with mental illness and interrogates the intricacies and ironies of the writer’s condition”, said organisers.
Carman’s debut fiction work, An Elegant Young Man (Giramondo), won the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing in the 2015 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and was shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal, the Steele Rudd Award and the Readings New Australian Writing Award.
During the residency, Carman will work on a new novel titled “A Quiet Desperation”. Along with the prize money, Carman will receive working space, full access to the university’s library and the opportunity to work with the university’s researchers, educators and clinicians.
Carman said, “I started writing initially unconscious of my motivations, desires or goals, yet each of the 3 times I’ve applied for the Charles Perkins Centre writer residency have been transformative.
“Going through the application process forces me to pause and ask myself: Why do I write? What am I trying to accomplish with my writing, and how can I use my writing to benefit others?”
First established in 2016, the fellowship is now in its 9th year. The program aims to connect “leading Australian creative writers with global health researchers to address complex health and social challenges through literature”.
Charles Perkins Centre academic director Stephen Simpson said, “The Charles Perkins Centre requires a collaborative and multidisciplinary approach, and it has been fascinating to see how our innovative research can intersect with the arts – with powerful and often emotional effect.”
The 2024 Judy Harris Writer-in-Residence Fellow was writer, editor and critic Fiona Wright.
More information about the fellowship is available on the University of Sydney website.
Category: Awards Local news
