Affirm Press Mentorship 2023 Winners Announced

Thank you to the editorial team at Affirm Press for selecting the writers participating in this year’s Affirm Press & Varuna Mentorship. Combining a one-week Varuna residency in January 2023 with an intensive mentorship with Affirm Press editors, the 2023 program has a focus on crime fiction.

Ruby Ashby Orr, Affirm Press Senior Editor, said, "selecting the four winners this year was a big challenge due to the striking quality of numerous submitted works. We would like to thank everyone who submitted their work as it gave us a rich and potent field to choose from. The four selected authors have devised unique and exciting concepts in crime fiction that we feel would benefit from further development with an editor.

“It’s exciting to have such fresh perspectives in this category, and we look forward to working with the authors to develop their manuscripts at Varuna.”

The Affirm Press Mentorship Award provides a unique opportunity for writers to develop exceptional new work through editorial feedback during their week in residence at Varuna. This year, Varuna received over 120 manuscripts from writers across Australia, four of which have been awarded a Mentorship placement. Congratulations to:

Zoe Downing, The Dead Don’t Disappear

Mark Mupotsa-Russell, Scratches in Lead

Anne Andrew, Blood Quilt

Inessa Jackson, Devil Mountain

Highly Commended from the Shortlist

Claire Sutherland, The Crag

Jem Tyley-Miller, Gone From My Sight

Phillipa Fioretti, A Soldier of the Queen

Michelle Barraclough, The Tangled Green

Other significant submissions from the shortlist included works from

Ben Goodfellow
Nicole Crowe
Laura McCluskey
Camille Booker
Tanya Scott
Natasha Granath
Brie Evans

The manuscripts were each double-read in the first selection process by our assessors Hayley Scrivenor and Greg Woodland. A shortlist and the complete set of applications with manuscripts were then sent to the editorial team at Affirm Press for their final selection.

We really appreciate the efforts of all the writers who submitted their manuscripts for the fellowship, and we regret, that unfortunately, we don’t have the resources to provide individual feedback to all applicants. Keep on writing!

We look forward to seeing Zoe, Anne, Mark & Inessa at Varuna for their Mentorship residency later this year.