Write and win

By Lachlan Ellis

A local writing competition is back on for its seventh year, with thousands in prizes up for grabs, as well as coveted places in a prestigious literary magazine.

The Peter Carey Short Story Awards, named after Bacchus Marsh-born author Peter Carey, is now open for entries, with the winning entry to receive $2000, and the runner-up to win $1000.

Both stories will also be published in the summer edition of Meanjin, one of Australia’s premier literary magazines, which has featured famous writers such as Dorothy Hewett, Judith Wright, and Peter Carey himself.

Stories must be between 2000 and 3000 words, and applicants must be Australian residents aged 18 or older.

The competition is being co-organised by local authors Wayne Marshall and Jem Tyley-Miller.

Mr Marshall said it was exciting to be holding the Peter Carey Short Story Awards once again, and encouraged anyone with an interest in storytelling to submit an entry.

“As always, we’re super excited to watch stories start to come in for another year of the Peter Carey Short Story Award. But in a lot of ways this year – our seventh – is the most special yet. Not only were we lucky enough to land writer Anne Casey-Hardy as our head judge, whose acclaimed short story collection Cautionary Tales For Excitable Girls was published earlier this year by Scribner. But Anne won the Peter Carey Award in 2018 for her story ‘Being the Mother’, and is the first of our winners to return to judge the competition,” Mr Marshall told the Moorabool News.

“It feels very full circle, and fills us with an enormous amount of pride and satisfaction that the work we’re doing with the award is allowing writers who’ve had success with it to go on to bigger things. 2020 winner Andrew Roff also had his debut short story collection The Teeth of a Slow Machine published last year. We’re also still very much committed to providing local writers with opportunities.

“This year, we’ll again be running a Best Local Award component, for writers who live, work or study in Moorabool Shire. So we urge everyone to put pen and paper ahead of the submission deadline on Thursday March 16.”

The entry fee is $15 per story, and you can enter as many stories as you like.

The longlist will be posted on the Moorabool Shire Council website in May, with the winner and runner-up to be announced at an awards ceremony at Lerderderg Library on Saturday 3 June at 2 pm.

For more information, including the full Terms and Conditions of the competition, visit www.moorabool.vic.gov.au and search ‘Peter Carey Short Story Awards 2023’.