The ACT Literary Awards
Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Lakeside
Thursday 27 June 2024.

The ACT Literary Awards are held annually to recognise and celebrate the achievements of writers from the ACT and surrounding regions. These honours also include the June Shenfield National Poetry Awards, the Anne Edgeworth Fellowship Award, the MARION Fellowship, and The Marion Halligan Award.

Thank you to all writers and publishers who entered work this year.

We received a large number of entries and thank everyone for their patience as our judges read through them all.

In Children’s literature we received a particularly broad field of entries from picture books through to YA Fiction and as such will be awarding winners in both the younger and older reader sections. Across all categories we ask judges to consider which entries stand out in their brilliance and demonstrate the following:

  • Literary excellence

  • Powerful narrative structure

  • Considered and impactful use of language

Shortlisted Works

J. Ashley Smith The Measure of Sorrow,stories (Meerkat Press)
Elisa Cristallo The Last Famine
Emma Grey The Last Love Note (Penguin Books Australia)
Ayesha Inoon Untethered (HarperCollins Australia)
Kylie Needham Girl In a Pink Dress (Penguin Books Australia)

Kristen Alexander Kriegies: The Australian Airmen of Stalag Luft III
Ryan Cropp Donald Horne: A Life in the Lucky Country (Black Inc.)
Kate Fullagher Bennelong & Phillip: A History Unravelled (Scribner)
Kellie Nissen What Cancer Said And What I Said Back
Fred Smith The Sparrows of Kabul (Puncher & Wattmann)
Angus Trumble Helena Rubinstein: The Australian Years (Black Inc.)

Elanna Herbert Sifting Fire Writing Coast (Walleah Press)
Paul Hetherington Sleeplessness (Pierian Springs Press)
Tim Metcalf The Moon the Bone: Selected Poems 1986-2022 (Ginninderra Press)
KA Nelson Meaty Bones (Recent Work Press)
Sandra Renew Apostles of Anarchy (Recent Work Press)

David Conley That Book About Space Stuff
Tania McCartney Wildlife Compendium of the World (Hardie Grant)
Kathy Weeden, Kim Drane Phonobet (National Library of Australia)
Rhian Willams, Martina Heiduczek Surprise at the End of Onkaparinga Lane (Walker Books Australia)
Barbie Robinson, Ian Robertson Phoenix and Ralph

Jackie French, Danny Snell The Turtle and the Flood (HarperCollins Australia)
Gary Lonesborough We Didn’t Think it Through (Allen & Unwin)
Amelia McInerney, Lucinda Gifford Neil the Amazing Sea Cucumber (Affirm Press)
Emma Janssen, Strong Little Platypus

KEY DATES

Wednesday 21 February - Call for entries open
Monday 18 March - Entries due 11:59pm
Thursday 6 June - Shortlist Announced
Thursday 27 June - ACT Literary Awards Night
Canberra Contemporary Arts Space, Lakeside, Parkes ACT

The 2024 ACT Literary Award judges this year are Professor Frank Bongiorno, Dr Paul Collis, Dan Hogan, Krys Saclier, and Beejay Silcox

The Marion Halligan Award
The Marion Halligan Award honours the life and work of Marion Halligan, who captivated readers with her elegant prose and insightful storytelling. She was an enduring force of creativity, intellect, wit, and wisdom. This award recognises works that demonstrate uniqueness, literary excellence, and/or surpass genre boundaries.