2024 Varuna Fellowships announced
Varuna at Night
Congratulations to the writers who have been awarded a Varuna Residential Fellowship for 2024.
This year, we received our largest ever number of applications: 555 submissions, from writers at all stages of their writing lives. Varuna is delighted to announce the 33 Fellowship winners, including seven Flagship Fellowship recipients.
The assessment was a highly competitive process. Each applicant’s submission and proposal was read by peer assessors, on the basis of criteria that included both the artistic merit of the work and its potential for further development. All applications were read by at least two assessors, and assessors did not review manuscripts where any conflict of interest was identified. The final shortlist was read by all eight assessors.
Our Varuna alumni peer assessors were: Chris Womersley, Jarrah Dundler, Lee Kofman, Leni Shilton, Linden Hyatt, Mary Anne Butler, Melanie Saward and Roanna Gonsalves.
Thank you to all the writers who submitted their work for consideration this year.
2024 FLAGSHIP FELLOWSHIPS
The Eleanor Dark Fellowship is awarded to Angella Whitton for their literary fiction work The Protector of Fledglings.
The Eric Dark Fellowship is awarded to Kimberley Knight for their essay collection A Body of Communication.
The First Nations Fellowship is awarded to Yasmin Smith for their poetry collection salt wattle.
The Mick Dark Fellowship is awarded to Jane Rawson for their narrative non-fiction work Human/Nature.
The Poetry Fellowship is awarded to Mran-Maree Laing for their poetry collection A Natural History of Love.
The Ray Koppe Fellowship is awarded to Madeleine Rebbechi for their short story collection Earth Signs.
The Jerra Fellowship is awarded to Rafeif Ismail for their speculative fiction Something Like Revolution 1 : Byut Al Ashbah.
2024 VARUNA RESIDENTIAL FELLOWSHIPS
The following residential fellowships were awarded:
Al Campbell for their historical fiction Door 64
Alice Robinson for their fictional work If You Go
Allanah Hunt for their fictional work Meet Me in Heaven or Hell
Amy Tan for their YA manuscript Runner Girl
Anna Fursland for their fictional work Lou and I
Anne-Marie Te Whiu for their poetry collection Mettle
Bryoni Trezise for their YA manuscript Ways to Make a Pearl
Catherine Owen for their children's book The Christmas Cult
Emma O'Neill-Sandham for their fictional work The Unbearable Lightness of Being Stella Cotton
Julietta Boscolo for their screenplay The Sound of Light
Kate Flaherty for their historical fiction manuscript Before the Crossing
Kylie Boltin for their memoir Five Incarnations
Laura Elvery for their historical fiction manuscript Nightingale
Lee Tulloch for their crime fiction Little Fingers
Lisa Salmon for their memoir Scratch - Memoir of a Dyke Icon
Lulu Houdini for their poetry collection guniimara
Mariam Tokhi for their fictional work The Interpreter
Mary Black for their memoir Stories from a Splav
Maura Bedloe for their fictional work Almond
Megan Albany for their fictional work Ten
Miles Allinson for their fictional work Blood of Unrequited Love (A Thief's Journal)
Molly Murn for their fictional work Radiance: a state of being
Rebecca Douglas for their crime fiction Welfare Queens
Sharon Kernot for their poetry collection The Deception of Dreams: A Novel in Verse
Su-May Tan for their YA manuscript Runner Girl
Tom Paech for their essay collection My (M)e(s)sy Life
Toni Jordan for their fictional work Colmslie Reach
2024 VARUNA RESIDENTIAL FELLOWSHIPS HIGHLY COMMENDED
The assessors highly commended the following works:
Ahona Guha for their narrative non-fiction How We Relate
Alison Barton for their poetry Reise (the German word for travel/journey)
Allaana Bills for their poetry collection Vestiges
Amber Stewart for their short stories Tales of Gong
Anthony Mullins for their fictional work Babble
Bianca Millroy for their narrative non-fiction work Caput Nebula
Casey Gray for their fiction for adults with disability Hear us roar!
Catherine McCarthy for their children's book Rickety Reef
Elizabeth Lewis for their poetry collection The Body's Long Hours
Ginger Gorman for their hybrid work Flying Not Falling: The atlas of my uncaging
Hayley Lawrence for their YA manuscript What They Told Me
Ian McArthur for their historical fiction Objects of Curiosity
Nix Hamilton for their YA manuscript We Swallowed the Stars
Sally Hepworth for their fictional work Darling Girls
Scott Pearce for their fictional work Summer Hues and City Blues
Sean West for their poetry collection Disappearing Acts