$15,000 Voiceless writing prize winners announced

Wayne Strudwick and Craig Simpson are joint winners of the first prize in the inaugural Voiceless Writing Prize.

Strudwick and Simpson will split the $15,000 prize, which was announced on the 28 November. Strudwick won for ‘Caged’, which ‘tells of the horror one boy faces when he encounters the suffering of thousands of caged hens and his struggle to protect them in the face of indifference’, according to a statement. Simpson’s ‘Kangaroo’ ‘details the brutal and traumatic death of a kangaroo and its impact on one woman, changing her life irrevocably’.

Also announced on the night was the Reader’s Choice award, which went to Jessica Stanley for ‘Not Long Now’, ‘a tale of one woman who forms a tight relationship with a kangaroo joey while recovering from the trauma of a mastectomy’. Stanley received $5000.

All three stories were included in The 2013 Voiceless Anthology (A&U), which published the 10 best entries in the competition, chosen by a judging panel including J M Coetzee; Voiceless co-founder and managing director Ondine Sherman, Sydney Morning Herald literary editor Susan Wyndham, and former director of the Sydney Writers’ Festival Wendy Were.

The publication was released as an ebook in September, with readers of the ebook invited to vote for their favourite piece in the Reader’s Choice competition. Twenty-five percent of royalties from ebook sales fund Voiceless’ work ‘to end the institutionalised suffering of animals’.

The print edition of the anthology was published this week. You can read a review online here.

Tags: awardsvoicelesswritingprize

Category: Local news