This special issue of TEXT seeks to publish scholarly papers and creative works concerned with and inspired by the theme of intertextuality. We are seeking creative works and scholarship that consciously respond to this tension, reflecting on or engaging in acts of allusion, rewriting and reimagining. In our contemporary moment of environmental, political and existential crisis, it is necessary to ask what purpose ‘writing back’ serves and how it might be done, especially in decolonising contexts.
Editors: Dr Aidan Coleman, (Southern Cross University), Associate Professor Melanie Duckworth (Østfold University College) and Associate Professor Adelle Sefton-Rowston (Charles Darwin University).
Abstracts for scholarly papers and creative work EOIs should be sent by 10 April 2026.
Read the full details and submission guidelines via the TEXT website.
Have you written a novella in prose or verse? Or a hybrid novella that crosses genre boundaries? Enter the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP) and Recent Work Press (RWP) ‘Novella Prize’ for your chance to win.
If you win you will receive: a written commendation from AAWP. This ‘tick of approval’ will see your manuscript assessed without delay. You will, effectively, leap to the top of the submissions pile. You will also receive a $500.00 cash prize and fully subsidised conference fees to attend the annual conference of the AAWP (November 2026) where you will be invited to read from your work.
If your full manuscript is as robust as the synopsis and opening extract, you may secure a publishing contract with RWP: https://recentworkpress.com
Take advantage of this stunning opportunity. Fast track your writing journey in a fiercely competitive market.
In 2026, the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP) and Westerly Magazine are offering a prize for Life Writing. We welcome submissions of autobiography, biography, memoir, and essays. We celebrate Life Writing as a rumination upon memory and experience and encourage creative and hybrid approaches.
The prize is open to writers at all stages of their journey; emerging and established writers are welcome to enter. The prize recognises excellence in nonfiction, creative nonfiction and hybrid modes of storytelling. Hybrid storytelling is broadly conceived as storytelling that crosses traditional boundaries of nonfiction and creative nonfiction and/or is experimental in form.
We invite you to send Life Writing submissions of up to 3500 words. The winner will receive a written commendation from AAWP, a $500 cash prize, a one-year subscription to Westerly, and conference fees to attend the annual conference of the AAWP, where they will be invited to read from their work. Please see item 3 (Terms and conditions). The winner’s work will be considered for publication by Westerly.
We encourage you to take advantage of this stunning opportunity to celebrate diverse interpretations of nonfiction, creative nonfiction and hybrid modes of storytelling, and be welcomed into the thriving community of writers associated with the AAWP.
We are deeply interested in capturing a composite “picture” of what people are writing about. Now. Please send creative work—short-short fiction, “sudden” fiction, “sketchy” stories, creative nonfiction, poetry, as well as hybrid forms.
We are accepting submissions on the following scale: up to 400 words prose, 40 lines for poetry, 200 words for prose poems, and the equivalent for hybrid forms. Submissions must be previously unpublished. Please send your most polished work, without delay.
If you win you will receive a written commendation from AAWP and a $500 cash prize. You will have your work published on the Express Mediawebsite and receive a Voiceworks subscription. You will also receive fully subsidised conference fees to attend the annual conference of the AAWP, where you will be invited to read from your work. Read the full terms of entry here
This prize is offered in partnership with the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF), and is open to translators at any stage of their career.
The winner receives a written commendation from AAWP, a festival pass to UWRF and accomodation for the duration of the festival (*Terms and Conditions apply, see below). In addition, you will receive fully subsidised conference fees to attend the annual conference of the AAWP, where you will be invited to read from your work. The editors at Meniscus Literary Journal will also consider your work for publication.
Entries must be no more than 30 lines (poetry) or 3000 words (prose), and entrants can translate their own work into English. Entries must be accompanied by a ‘Translator’s Statement of Intention’ (up to 400 words) addressing the aims of the translation.
If you win you will receive: a festival pass to UWRF and accommodation for the duration of the festival (*Terms and Conditions apply, see below). In addition, you will receive fully subsidised conference fees to attend the annual conference of the AAWP. The editors at Meniscus will also consider your work for publication.
Take advantage of this stunning opportunity to celebrate the craft of writing at Southeast Asia’s largest and most exciting literary festival. Be welcomed into the thriving community of writers within the AAWP. Enter your short story and make the most of this generous publication pathway and networking opportunity for emerging writers. Entries should not exceed 3000 words.
Enter your poem in the ‘AAWP/UWRF Emerging Writers’ Prize for Poetry for your chance to win.
If you win you will receive: a festival pass to UWRF and accommodation for the duration of the festival (*Terms and Conditions apply, see below). In addition, you will receive fully subsidised conference fees to attend the annual conference of the AAWP. The editors at Meniscus will also consider your work for publication.
Take advantage of this stunning opportunity to celebrate the craft of writing at Southeast Asia’s largest and most exciting literary festival. Be welcomed into the thriving community of writers within the AAWP. Enter your poem and make the most of this generous publication pathway and networking opportunity for emerging writers.
Have you written a poetry collection, literary novel, short story collection or a hybrid work that crosses genre boundaries? Enter the Australasian Association of Writing Programs’ (AAWP) ‘Chapter One’ competition for your chance to win.
If you win you will receive: a written commendation from AAWP and a letter of recommendation to the University of Western Australia Publishing (UWAP). This ‘tick of approval’ will see your manuscript assessed without delay. You will, effectively, leap to the top of the submissions pile. You will also receive a $500.00 cash prize and fully subsidised conference fees to attend the annual conference of the AAWP (November 2026) where you will be invited to read from your work.
If your full manuscript is as robust as ‘Chapter One’ you may secure a publishing contract with UWAP: http://uwap.uwa.edu.au.
Take advantage of this stunning opportunity. Fast track your writing journey in a fiercely competitive market.
You must be an AAWP member, and you may enter as many times as you like.
The Prizes and Partnerships Portfolio is managed by AAWP President | Chair, Associate Professor Julia Prendergast, contactable directly at jprendergast@swin.edu.au
Got a question? Want to be on our focused Prizes email list? Email us at prizes@aawp.org.au
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.’
In 2026, the Australian scholarly journal Cinder is transforming to a mentorship program. The program aims to support Higher Degree Researchers and Early Career Researchers to develop and submit a journal article to TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses.
If you are a Higher Degree Researcher or an Early Career Researcher (including independent scholars) who is seeking support to develop a draft scholarly paper suitable for TEXT, you are invited to apply. Early Career Researchers must be within 5 years of PhD conferral. You can read more about TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses here.
Successful applicants will be placed with a mentor – a topic or industry expert – who will read your work, provide feedback during a 30-minute meeting and review changes made in response to feedback. With mentor support, developed papers will be invited for submission to TEXT. You may negotiate a timeline with your mentor; however, it is anticipated that mentorships will not extend beyond 12 months.
The Cinder Mentorship consists of 6 places per year. Two places will be reserved for HDRs and ECRs from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The mentorship will also seek to support writer-scholars who are yet to be published or who experience barriers to support to develop scholarship.
To apply:
Write an application of no more than 1 page outlining:
A title, abstract and keywords of a proposed paper with the potential to be published in TEXT,
A short bio including relevant education, industry experience and any previous publications,
A short statement outlining the value of the mentorship to the applicant, including any information about your background you feel is relevant to the application, and
Your contact details.
Send applications and queries to the Cinder Mentorship Program coordinator, Ariella van Luyn: avanluyn@une.edu.au
Submissions open 1 January 2026 and will remain open until filled or 1 July 2026. You’re encouraged to submit early, as places may fill quickly.
Call for Expert Writing Mentors
We are inviting experienced academics, independent scholars and industry experts in writing, writing studies and adjacent disciplines to volunteer to act as Expert Writing Mentors as part of the Cinder Mentorship Program.
If you volunteer, your name and areas of expertise will be added to a list of mentors held by the mentorship coordinator. You may be contacted inquiring about your interest and capacity to read a draft paper, meet for 30 minutes with a mentee, and receive an account of their revisions in response to your feedback. If you agree, you will be put in touch with your mentee. You will be asked to provide a short progress update to the Cinder Mentorship Program coordinator. You may negotiate a timeline with your mentee; however, it is anticipated that mentorships will not extend beyond 12 months.
If you are interested in being an Expert Writing Mentor in the Cinder mentorship program, please submit:
Your name,
Position title and short CV,
Your best contact details, and
Areas of expertise
Expressions of interest and queries can be sent to Cinder Mentorship Program coordinator, Ariella van Luyn: avanluyn@une.edu.au
‘The second issue of Meniscus for 2025 features writers from around the globe composing short fiction, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and experimental works exploring and expressing aspects of being human, being in society, and being in the world. Some pieces deploy humour, some are manifestly tragic, some are imagistic and highly evocative. A surprising number of the contributions hone in on what it is to live with, or care for, someone with a serious illness (cancer and dementia being at the front of the line). Others pick up on how we live in both natural and built environments; on families, meals, and memories; on how our collective and individual pasts inform our present; and—perhaps inevitably—on conflict, and the corrosive nature of contemporary politics. As a set of prose and poetry works, they show how deeply satisfying is writing that combines sharp observation, a grasp of writing techniques, and a deep sense of empathy.
Also in this issue are the winning works from this year’s prizes offered by the Australasian Association of Writing Programs in partnership with the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival including the winning entries of the Emerging Writers’ for Prose, Emerging Writers’ for Poetry, and the Translators’ Prize. Congratulations to all who were shortlisted too, whose writing is well worth the reading.’
The AAWP is DELIGHTED to announce the winners of AAWP’s suite of prizes – offered in collaboration with local and international partners (Ubud Writers and Readers Festival; Spineless Wonders / Short Australian Stories; University of Western Australia Publishing; Westerly Literary Magazine; Voiceworks / Express Media).We thank all authors and translators for submitting their fine work. We take this opportunity to celebrate shortlisted and longlisted entrants. Please click on the prize winners’ names below for full access to details: highly commended authors and detailed judges’ reports.
10+ years ago, as a newly appointed member of the AAWP ECOM, I pitched an idea for a prize (a prize for a full-length manuscript, in partnership with the University of Western Australia Publishing). Since that time, the Prizes and Partnerships Portfolio has expanded to a suite of 7 prizes and partnerships: prizes for short-form writing and novella-length works, as well as a full-length manuscript – prizes in poetry and prose (fiction, creative non-fiction, hybrid forms of writing, and life writing) and works of translation.Behind the scenes, the prizes and partnerships portfolio involves significant labour. With this in mind, I extend my deep gratitude to many.
Thank you to Katrina Finlayson who has worked with me in managing the activities of this portfolio, across many years, refining processes and practices for schmick governance. Katrina will step down in her role in 2025. On behalf of the AAWP community, THANK YOU, Katrina, for your professional and emotional compass – your deep understanding of the imperatives of this portfolio, your grace under pressure, as well as your broader solidarity and labour in support of AAWP initiatives.
Thank you to Sarah Giles, who recently joined the team and has proven herself invaluable.
Thank you to Jen Webb, who provides ongoing support including (but not limited to) facilitating publication pathways for winners, shortlisted authors, and translators.Thank you to our judges, for your labour and minds’ eyes.I am deeply grateful to various members of the AAWP Committee of Management (ECOM), who work together to create publication pathways and networking opportunities for emerging and established writers and translators.
Warmly, always.
Julia.
Associate Professor Julia Prendergast AAWP President/Chair Portfolio Lead: AAWP Prizes and Partnerships
The new issue of Meniscus is crammed with poems and short stories and flash fiction, all of them reflecting the imaginations, voices and observations of writers who are doing what writers do: translating the world into text. The writers published here hail from across the globe: from the Americas, the UK and Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region. They hold various identities, bring various levels of prior experience in writing, and work their genres in a multitude of ways. This stunning range of experiences and contexts mean they produce a kaleidoscopic swirl through the possibilities of language, the multiplicities of ways of telling, and the performativity enabled by creative writing, thinking and practice.
Movement & Stasis: 30th Annual Australasian Association of Writing Programs Conference
University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, 3 – 5 December 2025
This year’s conference is on the theme of Movement and Stasis. We invite abstracts for conference presentations of 15 or 20 minutes in duration and pre-formed collaborative discussion panels (three to four panellists only) that reflect consideration of movement and stasis. We encourage any or all modes of presentation.
We welcome the submission of abstracts relevant to the creative writing discipline, on creative and professional writing practices and processes, research in creative writing, the teaching of writing and related issues.
The deadline for abstract submissions is 30 May 2025.
TEXT (Vol 29, No 1) includes scholarly contributors from Australia, New Zealand and the United States: Carrie Tiffany reflects on the mechanical intertext in relation to her award-winning novel Exploded View; Lilian Roberts explores Nachträglichkeit in poetic autobiography; Anders Villani contributes new thinking on trauma and poetics in Kate Lilley’s Tilt and his own collection, Totality; Patricia Webb discusses the inclusion of social justice themed texts in writing courses; Annabel Wilson reads for re-arrangement in Lynn Jenner’s Lost and Gone Away; Ruth Jackson writes on walking and travel writing in Ethiopia; Marija Pericic looks at sumazdat reading practices within the Soviet Union (USSR); Shelley-Anne Smith considers emotional contagion and embodied empathy in literary posthumanism; and Soren Tai Smith writes on self-shedding and decreativity in Kafka and Weil.
This issue also includes prose and poetry by Caitlyn Stone, Jacqueline Exbroyat (trans. Patricia Worth), Brid-Áine Parnell, Ian C. Smith, David Thomas Henrey Wright, Nat Kassel, Inez Baranay, Yuxin Zhao, Rebekah Clarkson, Shady Cosgrove, Gay Lynch, Julia Prendergast, Billie Travalini, Cassandra Atherton, Dominique Hecq, Jen Webb, Katrina Finlayson, Eugen Bacon, Paul Hetherington, Owen Bullock, Jessie Seymour, Martin Langford, Annabel Wilson, Verity Oswin, Beth Spencer, Ella Jeffrey, and Les Wicks.
And in our reviews section, Samuel J. Cox reviews Contemporary Preoccupations in the Australian Novel by Nicholas Burns and Louise Klee (eds.), Tarla Klamer reviews Leaf by Anne Elvey & Ways to Say Goodbye by Anne Kellas, Andrew Leggett reivews Annihilation by Michel Houellebecq, Philip Harvey reviews Lands of Likeness & Dark-Land by Kevin Hart, Jake Sandtner reviews Juice by Tim Winton, Jodi Vial reviews Flight by Shady Cosgrove, Colin Dray reviews A to Z of Creative Writing Methods by Deborah Wardle et al. (eds.), Amanda Tink reviews Raging Grace by Andy Jackson, Esther Ottoway and Kerri Shying (eds.), Denise Beckton reviews Thinning by Inga Simpson & Something About Alaska by JA Cooper, Moya Costello reviews The Season by Helen Garner, Carolyn Booth reviews Images of Water by Eugen Bacon (ed.), Jen Webb reviews Mishearing by David Musgrave and we publish a letter to the editors from James Shea and Grant Caldwell in response to Owen Bullock’s review of The Routledge Global Haiku Reader (TEXT Vol 28, No 2).
The $150,000 ARA Historical Novel Prize is open for submissions in two categories – Adult and Children &Young (CYA) Adult. $100,000 will be awarded to the Adult category winner, with an additional $5,000 awarded to each of the remaining two shortlisted authors. In the CYA category, the winner receives $30,000, while the two short listers receives $5,000 each.
The prize is open to authors who are citizens or residents of Australia and New Zealand. Novels must have been first published between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2025.
Open to researchers in various fields and disciplines, these fellowships offer financial and research support for residencies at the National Library. Providing extended access to Australia’s largest cultural collection, National Library Fellowships foster research that produces new knowledge to shape Australia’s intellectual landscape and contributes to public understanding of our collections.
The Library’s Fellowships offer experienced researchers an opportunity to undertake deep and sustained research at the National Library using the Library’s collections.
Fellowships are available to researchers who require onsite access to the Library’s uniquely held or extensive collections to advance their research towards publication or other public outcomes.
Applicants may work in any field or discipline where the Library’s collections have appropriate depth and breadth to support the desired outcomes.
Applications for National Library of Australia Fellowships and the Creative Arts Fellowship will close on Monday 5 May 2025.
