Barbara Jefferis Award
Entry Deadline: 24 May 2024, 5pm AEST
The Barbara Jefferis Award is offered biennially for “the best novel written by an Australian author that depicts women and girls in a positive way or otherwise empowers the status of women and girls in society”.
Barbara Jefferis was a feminist, a founding member of the Australian Society of Authors, its first woman President and, in the words of Thomas Keneally, “a rare being amongst authors, being both a fine writer but also organisationally gifted. She was a professional and internationally published writer long before most of us dreamed of such things”.
The Award is supported by the Barbara Jefferis Literary Fund, which was established as a result of a bequest from Barbara Jefferis’ husband, ABC film critic John Hinde, who died in 2006. The Australian Society of Authors is the Trustee of the Fund.
Past winners of the award include S.L. Lim (Revenge: Murder in Three Parts, 2022), Lucy Treloar (Wolfe Island, 2020), Libby Angel (The Trapeze Act, 2018) Peggy Frew (Hope Farm, 2016), Margo Lanagan (Sea Hearts, 2014), Fiona McFarlane (The Night Guest, 2014), Anna Funder (All That I Am, 2012), G.L. Osborne (Come Inside, 2011), Kristina Olsson (The China Garden, 2010), Helen Garner (The Spare Room, 2009) and Rhyll McMaster (Feather Man, 2008).
In 2024, the Award prize pool is valued at $55,000, with $50,000 for the winner and $5,000 to be shared among the short-listed authors, making this one of the most generous literary awards in Australia.