Peter Blazey Fellowship
Applications close on 7 August 2023
The $15,000 award is intended to further a work in progress from writers in the non-fiction fields of biography, autobiography and life writing.
The Peter Blazey Fellowship was established to honour the memory of Peter Blazey – journalist, author and gay rights activist – and has been made available through the generosity of Clive Blazey and Tim Herbert, brother and partner, respectively, of Peter Blazey.
“Peter was someone with a lion’s head of loose ends that could never fit into some ideologically sound and tidy space. Storyteller, mythomane, and one of the last great conversationalists in a country wary of the free flow of uncensored language, he was a comet who flashed his tail at everyone.”
– Tim Herbert, OutRage, 1997
Blazey was born in Melbourne in 1939 and worked for The Australian, The National Times and as a regular columnist for OutRage magazine. He published a number of books, including a political biography of Henry Bolte, and was co-editor of the short fiction anthology, Love Cries. His personal memoir, Screw Loose, was published posthumously in 1997.
The fellowship was launched by the Hon. Justice Michael Kirby in May 2004.
Past winners include SJ Norman (2023), Declan Fry (2021), Eleanor Hogan (2016), Julia Leigh (2015), Kim Mahood (2013) and Robert Kenny (2006).