South Australian Literary Awards


The South Australian Literary Awards, until 2024 known as the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, comprise a group of biennially-granted literary awards established in 1986 by the Government of South Australia. Formerly announced during Adelaide Writers' Week in March, as part of the Adelaide Festival, from 2024 the awards are announced in a dedicated ceremony in October. The awards include national as well as state-based prizes, and offer three fellowships for South Australian writers. Several categories have been added to the original four.

History

The Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature were created by the Government of South Australia in 1986 and awarded during Writers' Week as part of the Adelaide Festival.
In 2020, the State Library of South Australia took over administration of the awards from Arts South Australia, and library director Geoff Strempel felt that the awards being presented in the late afternoon right at the end of a busy Writers' Week meant that they did not get the attention they deserved, especially compared with its interstate equivalents.
From 2024, the awards are renamed the South Australian Literary Awards, and the awards ceremony takes place in the Mortlock Chamber of the SLSA towards the end of the year, away from the festival season. The first of the rebranded awards takes place in October 2024. The shortlist was announced on 9 August 2024.

Description

The Premier's Award is the richest prize, worth, and awarded for the best overall published work which has already won an award in one of the other categories. There is a total prize pool of, which is distributed 11 categories, including the Premier's Award. There are six national and five South Australian categories.
Other national awards, worth each as of 2024, are the Fiction Award, Children's Literature Award, Young Adult Fiction Award, John Bray Poetry Award, and the Non-Fiction Award. South Australian awards and fellowships are the Jill Blewett Playwright's Award, the Arts South Australia/Wakefield Press Unpublished Manuscript Award, the Barbara Hanrahan Fellowship, the Max Fatchen Fellowship, and the Tangkanungku Pintyanthi Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Fellowship. Applications for each year's awards are open until mid-December of the preceding year.
The awards are jointly funded by the SA government and the Libraries Board of South Australia.

National awards

Premier's Award

Winners:

Fiction Award

Winners:

Children's Literature Award

Winners:

Young Adult Fiction Award

Winners:

John Bray Poetry Award

Honours John Jefferson Bray, Chief Justice of South Australia, academic and poet for his distinguished services to Australian poetry.
Winners:

Non-Fiction Award

Winners:

South Australian awards & fellowships

Jill Blewett Playwright's Award

Winners:

Arts SA/Wakefield Press Unpublished Manuscript Award

  • 1998 Counting the Rivers by Pearlie McNeil
  • 2000
  • 2002 The Black Dream by Corrie Hosking
  • 2004 Goddamn Bus of Happiness by Stefan Laszczuk
  • 2006 The Quakers by Rachel Hennessy
  • 2008 The Second Fouling Mark by Stephen Orr
  • 2010 End of the Night Girl by Amy T Matthews
  • 2012 The First Week by Margaret Merrilees
  • 2014 Here Where We Live by Cassie Flanagan-Willanski
  • 2016 Mallee Boys by Charlie Archbold
  • 2018 A New Name for the Colour Blue by Annette Marner
  • 2020 In the Room with the She Wolf by Jelena Dinic
  • 2022 The Comforting Weight of Water by Roanna McClelland
  • 2024 Salt Upon the Water by Lyn Dickens

Barbara Hanrahan Fellowship

Winners:
  • 1994 Barry Westburg
  • 1996 Moya Costello
  • 1998 Cath Kenneally
  • 2000 Jan Owen
  • 2002 Graham Rowlands
  • 2004 Kirsty Brooks
  • 2006 Mike Ladd
  • 2008 Steve Evans
  • 2010 Patrick Allington
  • 2012 Nicki Bloom
  • 2014 Jennifer Mills
  • 2016 Carol Lefevre
  • 2018 Jude Aquilina
  • 2020 Aidan Coleman
  • 2022 Rachel Mead
  • 2024 Radiance: a state of being by Molly Murn

Max Fatchen (formerly Carclew) Fellowship

Winners:
  • 1988 Geoff Goodfellow
  • 1990 Anne-Marie Mykyta
  • 1992 Anne Brookman
  • 1994 Peter McFarlane
  • 1996 Chris Tugwell
  • 1998 Phil Cummings
  • 2000 Ian Bone
  • 2002 Ruth Starke
  • 2004 Marguerite Hann-Syme
  • 2006 Christine Harris
  • 2008 Rosanne Hawke
  • 2010 Nicole Plüss
  • 2012 Janeen Brian
  • 2014 Helen Dinmore
  • 2016 Marianne Musgrove
  • 2018 Danielle Clode
  • 2020 Sally Heinrich
  • 2022 Poppy Nwosu
  • 2024 The children of Elphinstone, by James A Cooper

Tangkanungku Pintyanthi Fellowship

Winners:

Historic awards

Innovation award

Winners:

The Mayne Award for Multimedia

Formerly the Faulding Award for Multimedia
.
Winners:
  • 1998 FlightPaths: Writing Journeys by Julie Clarke, Rob Finlayson, Tom Gibson, Denise Higgins, Bernie Jannsen, Nazid Kimmie and Adrian Marshall
  • 2000 Carrier by Melinda Rackham
  • 2002 Poems in a Flash @ The Stalking Tongue website Jayne Fenton Keane and David Keane
  • 2004 Concatenation by Geniwate