Celebrating South Australia’s writing culture by offering national and State-based prizes across a range of literary genres, as well as three fellowships for South Australian writers.
The Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature will be back in 2024.
We are excited about managing the literature awards and are finalising processes and timelines now.
Nominations will open later in 2023, so keep an eye on our website and socials for the latest updates.
The 2022 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature winners
The State Library, together with the South Australian Government, was pleased to host the 2022 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature.
The awards offered a total prize pool of $167,500 across six national and five South Australian categories, including the coveted Premier’s Award worth $25,000 for the overall winner.
We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2022 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, one of Australia’s richest and most prestigious literary awards.
We congratulate all winning and shortlisted authors and their publishers.
$25,000 for the best overall published work, chosen from the winners of the five national categories.
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Tara June Winch |
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About the author
Tara June Winch is an Australian (Wiradjuri) writer based in France. Her first novel Swallow the Air, (UQP) 2006 was critically acclaimed. In 2008, she was mentored by Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. The novel was listed on the HSC syllabus for Standard and Advanced English from 2009-2020 and a tenth-anniversary edition was published in 2016. |
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$15,000 for a published fiction or non-fiction book aimed at readers up to 11 years.
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Katrina Nannestad |
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About the author |
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$15,000 for a published novel or collection of short stories.
Tara June Winch, The Yield, Penguin Random House
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$15,000 for a published book of fiction aimed at readers aged 12 to 18 years.
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Leanne Hall |
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About the author Leanne Hall is an author of young adult and children’s fiction. Her debut novel, This Is Shyness, won the Text Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Writing, and was followed by a sequel, Queen of the Night. Her novel for younger readers, Iris and the Tiger, won the Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature at the 2017 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Leanne works as a children’s and YA specialist at an independent bookshop. |
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$15,000 for a published non-fiction work.
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Helen Ennis |
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About the author Helen specializes in Australian photographic history, especially of the modern period, and biography. Since 2000 she has curated eight major exhibitions for the National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery of Australia, National Library of Australia and other cultural institutions. Her biography of modernist photographer Olive Cotton was awarded the Magarey Medal for Biography and the Queensland Literary Awards Non-fiction prize in 2020. She is currently researching the life and work of Max Dupain. |
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$15,000 for a published collection of poetry, in honour of late South Australian poet Dr John Bray.
Sadly Victorian poet Jordie Albiston passed away a few days before the award ceremony. Ms Albiston was posthumously awarded for her work, Fifteeners.
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Jordie Albiston |
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About the author Jordie Albiston works within formal boundaries: traditional, experimental, or self-imposed. She seeks the musical cadence while endeavouring to exact a mathematical sense of existence. Often she utilises archival sources from which to wrest a kind of documentary cataloguing; other times she refers to an internal witness of experience. Her poetics are highly charged with vertigo, and doubt. Jordie’s sixth book, the sonnet according to ‘m’, won the 2010 NSW Premier’s Prize. |
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$12,500 for an unproduced play of any genre written by a professional South Australian playwright. Supported by State Theatre Company South Australia.
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Peter Beaglehole About the author |
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$10,000 plus publication by Wakefield Press for an unpublished, book-length manuscript by a South Australian writer.
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Roanna McClelland About the author |
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$15,000 for a South Australian writer for young people working in the genres of fiction, drama, poetry or screenwriting, named in honour of author Max Fatchen.
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Poppy Nwosu About the author |
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$15,000 for a South Australian writer working in the areas of fiction, poetry, drama, scriptwriting, autobiography, essays, major histories, literary criticism or other expository or analytical prose. Named in honour of distinguished South Australian writer and visual artist Barbara Hanrahan.
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Rachael Mead About the author |
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$15,000 for a South Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers working in the genres
of fiction, literary non-fiction, poetry and playwriting.
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Karen Wyld About the author |
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If you have any queries please contact:
AFAL Project Officer
Email: slsa.afal@sa.gov.au