Winners Announced for the ASA and Copyright Agency Writers’ and Illustrators’ Mentorship Program 2019

16.04.19

For the next three years, the new Award Mentorship Program has been made possible by the generous funding support from the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund. The ASA has been able to offer twenty 20-hour mentorships with an experienced writer, editor or illustrator. In addition, the winners receive a one-year membership to the ASA, a free ticket to our popular Literary Speed Dating event and access to the Pathways to Publishing Program. The Program is a series of industry talks, and discussions with writers and illustrators on a closed Facebook page. The five highly commended winners receive an appraisal on the first ten pages of their manuscript or portfolio, as well as the Pathways to Publishing Program.

For the first time, this Program accepted applications from both established and emerging writers so that all writers and illustrators had the opportunity to seek professional development in order to take their skills to the next level.

The ASA received over 300 applications this year, almost double that of previous years, and the overall standard was very high. We very much appreciate the time and effort given by our wonderful team of assessors and these comments from Toni Jordan and Leah Kaminsky summed up the overall feedback:

‘We were especially thrilled with the strong genre writing, and the number of more experimental extracts, and found it a little heartbreaking to have to single out the winners among such a talented and deserving pool of writers. In the end, we paired excellence in the extract with the applicants whom we felt were at a stage in their careers to benefit most from a mentorship with an experienced writer.’

Full comments by the assessors can be read below.

Assessors

Adult Fiction

Toni Jordan www.tonijordan.com/

Leah Kaminsky www.leahkaminsky.com

Narrative Non Fiction

Sunil Badami sunilbadami.com

Poetry

Brook Emery www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/brook-emery

Children’s, Young Adult and Picture Books

Libby Gleeson http://www.libbygleeson.com.au/

Tristan Bancks www.tristanbancks.com

 

Winners and Highly Commended

 

Adult Fiction Winners

Chloe Adams

Lou Greene

Andy Muir

Diana Navarro

Annabel Smith

Michael Uniacke

Sid Walls

Nicola West

Highly Commended – Shankari Nadanachandra

Highly Commended – Christine Paice

 

Adult Narrative Non Fiction Winners

Violet Kieu

Barbara McKenzie

Tom de Souza

Highly Commended – Kevin McQuillan

 

Poetry Winner

Helen Bradwell

 

Children’s, Young Adult, Picture Books Winners

Amy Adeney

Rae Bowen

Carla Fitzgerald

Eliza Holmes

Kathryn Hore

Pamela Rushby

Lucie Stevens

Carmel Summers

Highly Commended – Anna Quinlan

Highly Commended – Inda Ahmad Zabri

 

Adult Fiction

This year, the judges received and considered 115 works of fiction, and we were delighted with the outstanding quality of the large majority of entries. This made the judging process a privilege and a pleasure, but also meant that there were twenty applications on our longlist. We were especially thrilled with the strong genre writing, and the number of more experimental extracts, and found it a little heartbreaking to have to single out the winners among such a talented and deserving pool of writers. Every entry was compelling on its own terms, with voices both intriguing and diverse. In the end, we paired excellence in the extract with the applicants whom we felt were at a stage in their careers to benefit most from a mentorship with an experienced writer. - Toni Jordan and Leah Kaminsky

Adult Narrative Non Fiction Winners

The top entries in this category all displayed gripping and evocative writing that immediately engaged the reader. Their subjects were either timely or gave an intriguing glimpse into little known worlds that were both compelling and original. - Sunil Badami

Poetry

The work of the 14 applicants for the poetry mentorship varied widely in theme, form and achievement. Themes ranged from personal love lyrics, through landscape poetry, to protest poetry about politics, queer issues, domestic violence and bullying. Most of the poems were in free verse lines of varying lengths but there were some prose poems and some rhymed couplets. The work of the weaker applicants depended too heavily on ‘self-expression’ and allowed the message to overwhelm form. The work of the strongest applicants was controlled, developed and sophisticated. It displayed a sense of the effective deployment of line and image. Choosing between the top three applicants was difficult. What all the poems had in common was enthusiasm and sincerity. - Brook Emery

Children’s, Young Adult, Picture Books Winners

Determining the mentorship winners was not an easy task. Many of the writers on the longlist wrote work with original ideas. Their writing was also of a high quality and crossed a number of genres. I have no doubt that there is a potential for publication. Some pieces not chosen in the final ten also have considerable potential for publication. Reading the final twenty entries left me with a strong feeling that there are writers and stories worthy of being selected by publishers for a long time to come. Those writers receiving mentorships are will benefit from the professional help they receive and I wish them well on the path to seeing their books in print. - Libby Gleeson

I was very impressed by the calibre of submissions. It was difficult to narrow it to a top 20, let alone a top 10. I hope that  those writers who weren’t selected for this particular opportunity will continue to wake up, sit down and develop their stories. Many of the excerpts submitted were at a publishable standard or ready to be worked on with an editor. It’s just getting the timing right. I’d recommend having a slate of two, three or four projects in development because you just never know which one will ripen first. Good luck to all the writers and thanks for letting us read your work. - Tristan Bancks

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The Writers’ and Illustrators’ Mentorship Program 2019 is generously supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.