Winners announced!
Winners of the 2023 joanne burns Microlit Award National and Hunter have been announced. Details are available on the Newcastle Writers Festival website, here. Join award judge, Cassandra Atherton at the Newcastle Writers Festival for the Playfulness in Writing panel and the launch of the Play anthology of microlit. Copies of Play can be purchased here.
Finalists announced!
We are pleased to announce the following entrants who are finalists in the 2023 NWF/joanne burns Microlit Award.
Karen Whitelaw | Kim Waters | Deborah Van Heekeren | Bob Topping | The Poet Mj | Beth Spencer |Darrelle Spenceley | Angela Smith | Leni Shilton | Brenda Saunders | Nell Robertson | Ian Reid | KA Rees | Maddox Quinn | Brenda Proudfoot |Kathy Prokhovnik | Lili Pâquet | Jane O’Sullivan | Mark O’Flynn | Andrew Leggett | Sarah Iuliano |Helen Hopcroft | Dominique Hecq |Kathleen Mary Fallon | Dave Drayton | Charles D’Anastasi | Colleen Cridland | PS Cottier | Moya Costello | Alyce Caswell |Linda Carter |Gayelene Carbis | Marion May Campbell | Susan Braghieri | Kathleen Bleakley |Hannah Bambra |Magdalena Ball |Danielle Baldock |Carolyn Abbs
They will be published in the forthcoming anthology, Play along with invited contributors, Lizz Murphy, Oz Hardwick, Robert Heman, DeWitt Henry, Cindy Hochman, Richard Holt and Shady Cosgrove.
Here’s what our judge, Cassandra Atherton had to say about this year’s entries.
‘We received a huge number of wonderfully inventive pieces of microlit, that cast new light on childhood, game-playing, playwrighting and, often most impressively, on literary form and uses of language. The juxtaposition of the quotidian with the extraordinary was a feature of some of the best writing. It was thrilling to read so many accomplished pieces of microlit and see it flourish in Australia.’
Winners of the National and Hunter categories will be announced early in 2023 and the award ceremony and launch will be held in April at the Newcastle Writers Festival. Congratulations to everyone!
Entries now closed: Come play with us!
We are looking for play-themed writing for the 12th joanne burns Microlit Awards. Co-hosted by Newcastle Writers Festival and specialist microliterature publisher, Spineless Wonders, this award offers cash prizes and publication. The award will be judged this year by the celebrated and award-winning author, joanne burns and the publication will be edited by internationally renowned microlit expert, Professor Cassandra Atherton.
Send us microfiction or prose poems, up to 200 words, which reflect on some form or aspect of play – whether playful ideas, language or behaviour. You may wish to invoke creativity and the imagination. You may want to play seriously with words. You may like to remember childish play; or conjure recreational pleasure; or revel in irreverence; or debunk received ideas. You may want your microliterature to cavort.
Whatever the case, send us a snapshot from one of microliterature’s many playgrounds. Challenge our sobriety. We welcome submissions that will amuse, amaze and unsettle us. Take us on a journey that will make us see the world anew.
Submissions due by midnight, August 28, 2022.
National category entries, here.
Hunter category entries, here.
Entry conditions:
- Submissions will only be accepted via the Submittable link.
- Entry fee is $15.00 for National category. (Please note: only one submission per entry. There is no limit to the number of entries per person.) Entry for the Hunter category is free. Limit of three submissions per entry.
- Entrants must be over 18 years of age and must be either an Australian citizen (living anywhere) or a person residing in Australia.
- Entries will be judged anonymously. The author’s name must not appear on the manuscript.
- The judge’s decisions will be final. No correspondence will be entered in to.
- Entries are to be no more than 200 words (exclusive of the title).
- Submissions under consideration by another competition or publication or work that has been previously published or awarded will not be accepted.
- By entering this competition, writers grant Spineless Wonders and the Newcastle Writers Festival limited, fee-free, licence to publish their work and/or produce and broadcast it as audio or video. Intellectual Property shall remain with individual author on the understanding that the work not be published elsewhere until after December, 2023.
- The closing date is 28 August, 2022. Entries will be accepted up until midnight AEST. Late entries will not be accepted.
- Results will be announced by February, 2023.
- Spineless Wonders will offer publication to the winner and finalists in its annual anthology. All published entries, including the winner, may be edited.
For any further inquiries, email info[at]shortaustralianstories[dot]com[au]