2020 Memorial Lecture and Fellowship winner announcement
The winner of this year’s Fellowship will be announced at an event hosted by Writers Victoria at the Wheeler Centre, Melbourne on Friday 20 March 2020 from 6.15pm to 7.15pm. The announcement will follow the Hazel Rowley Memorial Lecture to be given by biographer Jacqueline Kent, entitled ‘Making Characters: biography and memoir’.
Jacqueline Kent, biographer of Julia Gillard, Hephzibah Menuhin, and Beatrice Davis, has turned the spotlight on herself and her brief but passionate relationship and marriage to Kenneth Cook, author of the novel Wake in Fright. Her book Beyond Words: A Year With Kenneth Cook was published by the University of Queensland Press in February 2019.
Jacqueline will discuss the necessary shifts in perception and approach when a writer switches from describing other people’s lives and decides to tackle her own. For example, what happens when you become a character in your own story?
Jacqueline won the Hazel Rowley Fellowship in 2018 for researching and writing the life story of Australian pioneer suffragist Vida Goldstein. This biography is due to be published by Penguin Random House in September 2020.
To book for the event, go to Writers Victoria website.
2020 Fellowship shortlist announced
Nine Australian writers have been shortlisted for the 2020 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship worth $15,000:
- Margo Beasley (NSW) for a biography of Australian doctor and political activist Eric Dark,
- Diane Bell (ACT) for a book called ‘The Queen and the Protector’, about Ngarrindjeri woman Louisa Karpany and South Australian ‘Sub-Protector of Aborigines’ George Mason,
- Tegan Bennett Daylight (NSW) for a biography of New Zealand-born writer Ruth Park,
- Stephenie Cahalan (TAS) for a biography of Australian artist Jean Belette,
- Gabrielle Carey (NSW) for a biography of Australian writer Elizabeth von Arnim,
- Madelaine Dickie (WA) for a biography of Indigenous leader Wayne Bergmann, a Kimberley Traditional Owner,
- Shakira Hussein (Vic) for her memoir ‘NineEleven-itis’,
- Lance Richardson (NSW/USA) for a biography of American writer, naturalist and Zen Buddhist Peter Matthiessen,
- Suzanne Robinson (Vic) for her proposal ‘Decadent Melbourne’, about art, artists and immorality in the 1890s.
Mary Hoban’s book wins Awards
We are pleased to announce that Mary Hoban’s book An Unconventional Wife: The life of Julia Sorell Arnold has won two prizes in the Queensland Literary Awards: the University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award and the University of Southern Queensland History Book Award.
Inaugural Fellow book launch
Our inaugural Fellow, Mary Hoban, launched her book An Unconventional Wife: The life of Julia Sorell Arnold at an event at Avenue Bookstore, Albert Park, Melbourne on Wednesday 3 April 2019. The book, which is published by Scribe, was launched by Ellen Koshland, a founding Donor of the Stella Prize. Mary was interviewed by Philip Adams about her book on Late Night Live on 10 April 2019.
2019 Hazel Rowley Fellowship winner
The winner of the 2019 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship was Eleanor Hogan who is writing a biographical work about the friendship between journalist Ernestine Hill and self-taught ethnologist Daisy Bates. Eleanor was announced as the 2019 Fellowship winner at Adelaide Writers’ Week on 4 March 2019. Eleanor is our first Fellowship winner from the Northern Territory. For more information, visit our Fellowship page and Writers Victoria.
The announcement followed the Hazel Rowley Memorial Lecture given by writer Maria Tumarkin. Maria won the 2018 Melbourne Prize for Literature’s Best Writing Award for her book Axiomatic, published by Brow Books. Axiomatic was also shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2019 and has been shortlisted for the Stella Prize.
