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writingWA Awards 2014 winners announced

The winners of the 2014 writingWA Awards, which support emerging writers based in regional Western Australia, have been announced.

Doreen Hill of Mandurah was awarded the Curtin University Prize for Fiction for her manuscript In the Den. The award includes a cash prize of $6000 and a mentorship with author Ken Spillman.

Denmark author Jamie Ablett’s manuscript Planet Happiness was also highly praised, and writingWA has arranged for Hachette Australia publisher Sophie Hamley to assist with the manuscript’s development.

The State Library of Western Australia Prize for WA History, worth $6000, was jointly awarded to Lesley James of Kununurra and Ann Grylls of Trayning. James’ manuscript centres on the history of the Munja Track and Grylls’ manuscript is the personal story of a World War I nurse.

The awards were judged by Curtin University senior lecturer and author David Whish-Wilson and author Susan Midalia.

‘The State Library is particularly pleased to be supporting this development process for regional writers,’ said state librarian Margaret Allen. ‘The diversity of projects being tackled by aspiring writers in regional WA will contribute to the interpretation and understanding of our state’s history.’

The 2015 writingWA Awards will be open for submissions in July. For more information, see the writingWA website here.

 

Category: Local news