Hazel Rowley Fellowship final year
It is with some sadness, but also with enormous pride in our achievement, that we announce that the 2026 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship will be the last.
The Fellowship has been running for the past 14 years since Hazel died in March 2011. It was created to honour Hazel as a skilled biographer and to encourage others to write with the same care and enthusiasm in this time-consuming and exacting genre. Based on Hazel’s own experience we recognised the need to support a work in progress by providing money for research and travel. Over the past 14 years the Fellowship has supported more than 20 writers to progress and finish their projects.
We are incredibly proud of these authors and their publications coming out of this initiative – all beautiful biographies on a range of subjects, including Gwen Harwood, Frank Moorhouse, Vida Goldstein, Elizabeth von Arnim, Thomas Keneally, early filmmakers the McDonagh Sisters and a memoir by Maxine Beneba Clarke, among others. Some of these books have won national and state-based prizes and many have been longlisted and shortlisted. There will be more fabulous biographies in the coming years as previous Fellows complete their projects.
The Fellowship, through supporting writers, has made a significant contribution to contemporary Australian biography and memoir, and importantly has allowed us to remember Hazel and celebrate her achievements. Louise Adler, Director, Adelaide Writers’ Week, said, ‘I was honoured to publish Hazel’s award-winning and truly brilliant biography of Christina Stead and later her wonderful portrait of a marriage, Franklin and Eleanor. Both books set the benchmark in their genre. Hazel’s courage in the subjects she chose was matched by the courageous way she lived. I miss her contribution to our literary culture and her friendship.’
The support and encouragement we have received from the writing community has been amazing, with our wonderful judges, our donors and willing speakers at our major event in March each year when we announce the winner of the Fellowship.
During the course of the Fellowship we have given over $300,000 to writers. Our money has been invested wisely by Australian Communities Foundation, which has grown the value of the donations we have received, and we have been able to increase the Fellowship to $20,000 from the initial $10,000. None of this would have been possible without our partnerships with Writers Victoria, Adelaide Writers’ Week and Australian Communities Foundation.
There are so many people to thank before we finally finish up, from our small beginnings with three hard-working friends of Hazel’s, it has grown far beyond our wildest dreams and we feel that all our winners are part of our Hazel Rowley literary family.
We will open for applications for the last Fellowship on 1 October 2025 and close again on 16 November 2025. Our final Fellowship announcement will take place at Adelaide Writers’ Week on 4 March 2026. We are also planning an event in Melbourne in March 2026 at the State Library of Victoria.
Let’s make these last events a memorable finale.
Matthew Lamb shortlisted for National Biography Award
We are thrilled to announce that our 2016 Fellow, Matthew Lamb has been shortlisted for the 2025 National Biography Award for his book Frank Moorhouse: Strange Paths (Knopf, 2023). The winner will be announced in late July 2025.
The State Library of NSW, who administers the award, is holding a Meet the Shortlist event at the library on Saturday 16 August 2025.
2025 Hazel Rowley Fellowship winner
Della Rowley, Michelle Staff
The winner of the 2025 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship, worth $20,000, is Michelle Staff, who is writing a joint biography of influential feminist activists and sisters Bessie Rischbieth and Olive Evans (née Earle). Born in late 19th century South Australia, both sisters married and moved to Western Australia around the turn of the century. Although they led different lives, with Bessie becoming a childless but wealthy widow who travelled the world to promote women’s rights and Olive a mother of six who stayed in Perth working for similar causes, they shared similar interests and values. Bessie established an Australia-wide feminist organisation, the Australian Federation of Women Voters, and Olive was especially active in the Women’s Service Guilds of Western Australia. With a strong personal relationship that extended into their activist work, both played significant if differently recognised roles in Australian feminist history.
This year the judges also gave Highly Commended awards to Monique Rooney and Jennifer Martin. Monique is writing a biography of New Zealand-born Australian writer Ruth Park and Jennifer is writing a biography of Australian journalist Eva Sommer, inaugural winner of the Walkley Award.
The announcement on 5 March at Adelaide Writers’ Week followed a discussion between Geordie Williamson and Matthew Lamb, our 2016 Fellow, about his biography Frank Moorhouse: Strange Paths (Knopf, 2023).
More information about our 2025 recipients can be found on our Fellowship page.
National Library Canberra acquires Hazel Rowley Papers
We have some exciting news for researchers and biographers.
Hazel Rowley lodged her Papers in relation to her Christina Stead biography with the National Library of Australia (NLA) back in 1996. The NLA has now acquired the rest of Hazel’s Papers in relation to her biographies of Richard Wright (2001), Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre (2006), and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt (2010). They have also acquired her Papers in relation to her essays and her other writing.
The NLA was very pleased to acquire the collection. It includes an original letter of Simone de Beauvoir and original letters of Christina Stead. The Papers are catalogued under the heading Papers of Hazel Rowley. For more information about Hazel Rowley and her writing, go to our Hazel Rowley page.
