Express Media is delighted to announce the shortlist for The 2022 Hachette Australia Prize for Young Writers.

Now in its sixteenth year, The Hachette Australia Prize for Young Writers is a unique developmental award that recognises excellence in creative writing from Australian secondary school-aged students.

Express Media and Hachette Australia are thrilled by the number of entries and by the incredible writing submitted across three categories; fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry, with 15 young writers from across Australia making the shortlist.

The shortlist is decided by external judges appointed by Express Media, with the winners in each category selected by the Hachette Australia Prize for Young Writers mentor, Zana Fraillon, and representatives from Hachette Australia.

The 2022 Hachette Australia Prize for Young Writers shortlist is:

FICTION:

• Yellow-Eyed Cat by Aimee Perrett (NSW) 
• Claylike by Grey Clisby de la Piedad (VIC) 
• The Night Garden by Amber Zhao (QLD) 
• The Kettle Thief of the First Floor by Lia Wiese (QLD) 
• Movie with a Cup of Tea by Amy Ma (SA) 

NONFICTION:

• Mental Funerals by S.D Munawara (VIC)  
• Bean and I by Tasmin Engelhard (VIC) 
• The F Word by Tom He (VIC) 
• Read My Lips by Olivia Campbell (VIC) 
• Roots by Rose Mitchell (NSW) 

POETRY:

• Ivy by Brianna Elvish (VIC)  
• Art Class by Sammi Wu (VIC) 
• A Letter to Y by Cori Rushdi (VIC) 
• Scraps of the Red Carpet New Authentic Never Used by Irene Lu (VIC) 
• Antlered man by Neve Robinson (VIC) 

Prize mentor Zana Fraillon had this to say of this year’s shortlist:

“The shortlisted entries for this year’s Hachette Prize embraced the small moments of our lives with a fierce and powerful determination to be seen and heard. These writers may be young, but their maturity and clarity of ideas, the strength of expression, and the confidence and belief in their writing suggests that these are all writers who we will be seeing a lot more of in the years to come. When you read their entries, I have no doubt you will be as grateful for this as I am. What I loved most about these pieces was their freshness of voice. There was diversity of style and genre and topic, but the voices in the shortlisted pieces felt wonderfully, brilliantly alive and awake and full of insight. There are images in these pieces that have stayed with me for weeks now. Phrases that haunt. These are authors who I will be following closely. For all our sakes, I hope this is just the beginning of their writing journey.”

Our fifteen shortlisted writers will receive a YA book pack courtesy of Hachette Australia, be invited to participate in an exclusive workshop with Express Media tutors and a special Q&A event with Zana Fraillon. 

Prize winners will also receive a $500 cash prize, courtesy of Hachette Australia, publication of their work on the Express Media website plus their names and an acknowledgement printed in Voiceworks, Australia’s premier youth literary journal.

The prize will be announced and presented in a special event at the National Young Writers Festival on Friday 30th of September, 2022.

Congratulations to all our shortlisted writers!

For all media enquiries, please contact Magenta Sheridan, Creative Producer, Express Media | creativeproducer@expressmedia.org.au