Ansons wins 2025 Fresh Ink Prize

Newcastle Writers Festival (NWF) has announced Jessie Ansons as the winner of the 2025 Fresh Ink Prize, an award for emerging writers in regional NSW, for “Forever Yours”, an extract from a novel-in-progress.

According to the organisers, “Forever Yours” follows Evelyn and her abusive late husband, who lives on through AI.

Hunter region–based Ansons’s work has featured in the Newcastle Herald, the Canberra Times, the Hunter Writers’ Centre’s Grieve project and elsewhere.

As the winner, Ansons received $5000 to put towards professional development and a week-long residency at Varuna, The National Writers’ House. The winning extract will be published in the summer issue of Swell magazine in December.

Judges Courtney Collins and Natasha Rai described Ansons’s work as “disturbingly unforgettable”.

Collins said, “It really got under our skin and that’s what we’re all trying to do as writers. There’s a beautiful restraint that you show and a real respect for your reader. It’s a gift to remember that your reader also makes the story.”

For the first time, this year’s shortlisted writers received $250 each. The shortlisted writers include Shannon Benton, Carlie Slattery, Monique Wallace and Sylvia Wilczynski.

Pictured (left to right): Courtney Collins, Jessie Ansons, Rosemarie Milsom.

Category: Awards Local news