Prizes
The AAWP works with our partner organisations to offer five annual opportunities for emerging writers.
These prizes are:
- AAWP&Recent Work Press Novella Prize
- AAWP&Express Media Sudden Fiction Prize (open to emerging writers under 25)
- AAWP & Westerly Magazine Life Writing Prize
- AAWP/UWRF Translators’ Prize, in partnership with the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival
- AAWP & UWRF Emerging Writers’ Prize for Prose, with the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival
- AAWP & UWRF Emerging Writers’ Prize for Poetry, with the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival
- Chapter One Prize, with the University of Western Australia Publishing
AAWP prizes have been ratified by Arts Law
‘Arts Law was very impressed with AAWP’s attitude, which clearly demonstrated AAWP’s respect for writers.’ You can read more here:
https://www.artslaw.com.au/case-studies/fair-terms-for-writing-competitions/
For more information on any of these prizes, visit our Prizes page.
Prizes and Partnerships Portfolio Team
All AAWP prizes are managed by the Prizes and Partnerships Portfolio team. In 2026, this is Julia Prendergast, Sarah Giles, and Lili Pâquet.
Please feel welcome to contact us via email with any queries about AAWP prizes.
Associate Professor Julia Prendergast
Julia Prendergast is a fiction writer and essayist. Her novel, The Earth Does Not Get Fat was longlisted for the Indie Book Awards (debut fiction). Bloodrust and Other Stories was published in 2022 (fiction of the week: SMH / The Age newspapers). Blent was published in 2025. Her essays are available in New Writing, and elsewhere. Julia lives in Melbourne on unceded Wurundjeri land. She is Associate Professor / Discipline Leader (Creative Writing, Literature, and Publishing) at Swinburne University, and President of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP), the peak academic body representing the discipline of Creative Writing in Australasia.
Sarah Giles
Sarah Giles (she/her) is a writer and PhD candidate at Swinburne University. She is researching the possibilities of the contemporary short story cycle as a means for exploring women’s experiences of isolation, mental illness, and relational agency. Sarah’s creative work is informed by the life and art of Joy Hester (1920—1960). Her writing has been published in The Writing Mind: Creative Writing Responses to the Living Brain, ACE IV, ACE III, TEXT Journal, among others. Her audio documentary ‘learning to live’ was one of eight selected to be a part of the 2018 Sonic Tonic series.
Dr Lili Pâquet
Dr Lili Pâquet is a Senior Lecturer in Writing at the University of New England, based in Armidale on Anaiwan land. She has won awards for her teaching, scholarly writing, and creative writing. Her poetry appears in journals such as Antipodes, Rabbit, and Cordite Poetry Review, among others. She is author of the monograph, Crime Fiction from a Professional Eye: Women Writers with Law and Justice Experience (2018) and co-editor of True Crime and Women: Writers, Readers, and Representations (2024).
Access and Equity Scoping Report
The Access and Equity Scoping Report was commissioned by the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP) Executive Committee of Management in June 2025. Dr. Axel-Nathaniel Rose was asked to scope AAWP members’ experiences of marginalisation, minoritisation, and exclusion within their work as writer-scholars, and query what AAWP could offer them within a portfolio addressing equity, diversity, access, and inclusion. This Report is the product of interviews with sixteen AAWP members. It is a working document which will be revised in collaboration with AAWP’s membership over time.
Letter in support of NTEU
A letter in support of the National Tertiary Education Union’s (NTEU) decision to offer fee relief for casual members in the face of Covid-19.
NiTRO Articles
In this article in the March 2020 edition of NiTRO, the journal of the Australian Society of Deans and Directors of Creative Arts (DDCA), AAWP Chair Dr Julia Prendergast and Deputy Chair Professor Craig Batty discuss AAWP’s work to negotiate a collective voice for creative practitioners, teachers, and researchers.
This article raises some ideas about inclusion in the creative arts. ‘New Verbs: a Preamble to Impact and Engagement’, March 02, 2018 by Dr Antonia Pont.
Letter in Support of UWAP
In November 2019, the AAWP wrote this letter in response to the proposed closure of the University of Western Australia Press. We were subsequently delighted to hear of the decision to keep UWAP running.