UQP authors shortlisted for the 2025 NSW Premier's Literary Awards.
Congratulations to the UQP authors shortlisted for the 2025 NSW Premier's Literary Awards.
The NSW Literary Awards are held annually. They are the richest and longest-running state-based literary awards in Australia and cover all genres of writing.
The Awards provide an opportunity to highlight the importance of literacy and to encourage everyone to enjoy and learn from the work of our writers. These annual awards honour distinguished achievement by Australian writers, contribute to Australia’s artistic reputation, and draw international attention to some of our best writers and to the cultural environment that nurtures them.
Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko
Judges' Comments:
Edenglassie is a groundbreaking novel, bringing to life the rich history and culture of First Nations people one generation after first contact; it is also an unflinching act of truth-telling. One strand of the novel focuses on a young saltwater couple, Mulanyin and Nita, struggling to forge a relationship during the colonial violence of Magandjin/Brisbane in the 1850s. The other strand is a contemporary narrative that interrogates our understanding of that same history. Granny Eddie Blanket and her granddaughter Winona both command attention in their understanding of how the past is seen, how its tragedies are carried and who may tell these stories.
In this epic re-visioning of Magandjin/ Brisbane, Melissa Lucashenko provides a powerful sense of place and a heartbreaking account of the fate of Goori people under invasion. At the same time, Edenglassie is also a moving love story, infused with the author’s characteristic humour, wit and compassion.
Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction
Judges' Comments:
Amy McQuire offers an unflinching examination of how racial biases in Australian journalism have influenced the coverage of Black Australia, fuelling discriminatory outcomes in law enforcement and access to justice. Black Witness interrogates whether mainstream media, shaped by Australia’s colonial histories, can ever be truly objective in framing First Nations communities. Drawing a strong connection between media narratives and the real-world consequences for those navigating the criminal justice system, domestic violence and forced child removals, this work sheds light on the myths, erasures and distortions that have long justified systemic violations.
From the glorification of a ‘heroic’ bushranger guilty of killing Aboriginal women, to manufactured media narratives that justified military-style interventions in communities, Black Witness is both a searing critique and a call to action. A vital work, it examines the role of power dynamics and argues for the importance of transparency, accountability and independence within wider conversations of journalistic objectivity and balance.
Judges' Comments:
There’s an irresistible intersection at the heart of Slick, interrogating how Big Oil colluded to obfuscate and misdirect public opinion while influencing government climate crisis policy (tactics straight out of the American corporate playbook that have paid handsome dividends in Australia). Some politicians, it would appear, are only too willing to do the tap-dancing required to satisfy multiple constituencies.
Journalist Royce Kurmelovs walks the reader through complex environmental policies and political gymnastic manoeuvres in a refreshing and engaging way. The strength of Slick lies in the vigour Kurmelovs injects into the dull space of mind-curdling numbers and policy shorthand. Highly present in the unfolding of this drama, Kurmelovs wears his heart on his sleeve. In examining how individual scientists, politicians and activists push back against corporate lobby groups impeding effective responses to climate change, Kurmelovs offers hope for the future.
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
Gawimarra: Gatheringby Jeanine Leane
Judges' Comments:
Wiradjuri poet and scholar Jeanine Leane flexes her established poetic strengths in Gawimarra. Her latest collection is structured in three parts: the titular Gawimarra Gathering, Nation and Ngulagambilanha Returning are linked, like seasons, as they move through Leane’s ruminations on power, Wiradjuri and settler meaning-making, memory, relationality and gender.
Leane is a compelling thinker and dexterous across a wide range of forms. Slipping between lyrical and experimental with ease, she is clear-eyed and bold without ever sacrificing her craft. Her work is cleverly referential — not just to public works or known events but to relational networks, including Country. Through response, memory and dedication, she honours other artists, thinkers, matriarchs and activists. Gawimarra brilliantly distills key moments and sites of decolonial transformation for Aboriginal women as a polity, including those transformations happening right now.
Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature
Judges' Comments:
Leo has a secret. His best (and only) friend, Ralph, isn’t exactly real. He’s an imaginary friend who has flown down from one of Jupiter’s moons. Leo doesn’t know what he would do without Ralph. The pair are inseparable. That is, until Leo’s family move to remote Dundle, and Leo has to say goodbye to Ralph. The move triggers a change in Leo as he navigates new surroundings, a new school and new people.
In Leo and Ralph, Peter Carnavas explores deep childhood emotions with a light touch. The simply worded prose is tender and warm, making it highly accessible to younger readers. Despite being grounded in real and common situations, the story is also playfully imaginative. The writing has wit and insight, with well-crafted scenes that take the reader on a poignant and powerful journey.
Indigenous Writers' Prize
Black Witnessby Amy McQuire
Judges' Comments:
Black Witness interrogates the power of presence and absence — who gets to speak, who is spoken for, and how Black testimony is routinely rendered unreliable. Amy McQuire meticulously unpacks two decades of Indigenous affairs through the Australian mainstream media’s handling of wrongful incarceration, police brutality, government interventions and the systemic disappearance of Aboriginal women. This book is a forensic critique of how the media does not just report on these injustices but actively constructs public perception, manufacturing credible white witnesses while undermining Black voices.
Black Witness also honours the legacy and growth of First Nations journalism, asserting a future where land, sovereignty and First Nations aspirations remain central. With tight, direct prose and a wellresearched, unflinching approach, McQuire sets a new standard for cultural studies, insisting on an ethical reckoning with the power of narrative and who controls it.
Always Will Beby Mykaela Saunders
Judges' Comments:
A collection of speculative short fiction, Always Will Be unsettles ‘the way things supposedly are’ through a Goori, localised lens. Mykaela Saunders crafts immersive, emergent worlds grown from the Tweed region, where the land remains the law. These stories move through shifting social and ecological terrains, between uncles and aunties, tourists and drifters, totemic objects such as paintbrushes, guns and clapsticks, and the various nooks and communes of this sought-after country.
Blending a cheeky splash of parable and allegory, Saunders challenges dominant narratives, teasing out the absurdity of colonial myth-making. Some stories unfold as playful thought experiments, others as stark warnings, but all reinforce the fact that life in the colony is never neutral. Always Will Be is a stylish and entertaining reimagining of power and complicity where the future of Indigenous storytelling is not only central but sovereign.
Jilyaby Tracy Westerman
Jugdes' Comments:
Jilya is at once memoir, clinical reflection and a record of decades spent working in mental health, almost exclusively with Aboriginal people. Tracy Westerman draws from both personal experience and rigorous research to unpack the sociopolitical forces shaping grief and trauma in Aboriginal communities. She reveals how Western psychology has long misread the signs, applying frameworks that fail to understand cultural realities and, in doing so, often causing harm.
Westerman’s writing carries the weight of deep research and lived experience. There is confidence in the way she writes, a sense of imperative, direction and a drive to heal. Beyond critique, Jilya lays down pathways for more First Nations people to enter the field of psychology, offering new frameworks that recognise the role of Country in healing and the urgent need for approaches that do not repeat the mistakes of the past.
UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing
Jugdes' Comments:
Jilya is at once memoir, clinical reflection and a record of decades spent working in mental health, almost exclusively with Aboriginal people. Tracy Westerman draws from both personal experience and rigorous research to unpack the sociopolitical forces shaping grief and trauma in Aboriginal communities. She reveals how Western psychology has long misread the signs, applying frameworks that fail to understand cultural realities and, in doing so, often causing harm.
Westerman’s writing carries the weight of deep research and lived experience. There is confidence in the way she writes, a sense of imperative, direction and a drive to heal. Beyond critique, Jilya lays down pathways for more First Nations people to enter the field of psychology, offering new frameworks that recognise the role of Country in healing and the urgent need for approaches that do not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Winners will be announced Monday, May 19 from 6:00PM
Edenglassie
Gawimarra:
Gathering
Black Witness
