Category: The City of Fremantle Hungerford Award

Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes has won the 2024 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award for የተስፋ ፈተና / Trials of Hope. Written in English and Amharic poetry and prose, this fascinating autobiographic work shares Yirga’s journey from boy shepherd in Ethiopia to human rights academic at Curtin University. Yirga is a writer, researcher and poet from Lalibela, […]

Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes is one of four writers shortlisted for the 2024 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award and in the running to win a $15,000 cash prize from the City of Fremantle, a publishing contract with Fremantle Press and a writing fellowship at the Centre for Stories. We asked Yirga to tell us more about […]

Year 6 student Julian Henningsgaard won the Phillip Pendal Young Heritage Award for his essay Words From the Past, which shares the serendipitous connection between T.A.G. Hungerford and the MillPoint Caffé Bookshop. We are delighted to publish the essay for you to enjoy, too.

Jodie Tes is one of four writers shortlisted for the 2024 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award and in the running to win a $15,000 cash prize from the City of Fremantle, a publishing contract with Fremantle Press and a writing fellowship at the Centre for Stories. This is the second time the Hilton-based author has […]

Fiona Wilkes is one of four writers shortlisted for the 2024 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award and in the running to win a $15,000 cash prize from the City of Fremantle, a publishing contract with Fremantle Press and a writing fellowship at the Centre for Stories. Her desire to balance out the narrative around queer […]

Howard McKenzie-Murray is one of four writers shortlisted for the 2024 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award and in the running to win a $15,000 cash prize from the City of Fremantle, a publishing contract with Fremantle Press and a writing fellowship at the Centre for Stories. We asked Howard to tell us more about his […]

Four Western Australian writers are shortlisted and in the running for the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award. Judged anonymously, the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award is a biennial prize awarded for an unpublished manuscript by a Western Australian author for a work of fiction, narrative non-fiction or young adult fiction. The winner receives a cash […]

City of Fremantle Hungerford Award winner Molly Schmidt is in the running for The Readings New Australian Fiction Prize for her coming-of age-novel Salt River Road.  Now in its tenth year, and the only award run by an independent Melbourne bookshop, the Readings Prize supports new and outstanding Australian voices with the winners receiving a $5,000 […]

When Robert Edeson needs facts, he often makes them up. Edeson says, ‘In my view, that’s the sublime (and subversive) prerogative of a fiction writer. It is also strangely liberating after an obediently truthful life in science.’

Ten Western Australian writers are longlisted and in the running for the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award. Judged anonymously, the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award is a biennial prize awarded to an unpublished manuscript by a Western Australian author for a work of fiction, narrative non-fiction or young adult fiction. The winner receives a cash prize […]

Anatomy of a Secret by Gerard McCann was shortlisted for the 2022 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award. Publisher Georgia Richter says, ‘Gerard McCann’s memoir documents the experiences of a Catholic boy who was just one of scores of young boys sexually assaulted by convicted paedophile Leo Leunig in Perth in the 1960s. Despite the confronting […]

Wayne Bergmann has spent decades fighting for the rights of Traditional Owners – a job that often puts him in the firing line. So what was it like to reflect back on the entirety of his life – from his childhood to today? To write his story, Wayne called on award-winning novelist and longtime colleague […]

Salt River Road by Molly Schmidt is one of ten Australian debut novels in the running for a 2024 Indie Book Award. Presented by Leading Edge Books, the Indie Book Awards celebrate the depth and range of literary talent in this nation. They recognise the best Australian writing as chosen by Australian independent booksellers. In […]

Screen Australia and Stan have announced Invisible Boys is one of three new Stan Original series commissioned for production. Based on the book by multi-award-winning Fremantle Press author Holden Sheppard, Invisible Boys will be a ten-episode contemporary drama series set in the regional town of Geraldton, Western Australia. Spoiler alert!  ‘In a small town everyone […]

On a morning exploding with pigeons, I fall into a phone conversation with my old friend Kiera as I walk to work. ‘Can we talk about historical fiction?’ I ask. ‘I don’t write historical fiction,’ she says. ‘I write speculative biography.’ Isn’t that the way of writerly research, I think with a sigh: you push […]

During my thirty-five years as a published writer and thirty years as a teacher of creative writing at various universities, I’ve read several articles by creative writers, writing teachers or editors who say that starting to write a new story is the hardest part. But for me, beginning a story comes relatively easily. Almost always, […]

Beneath the trees and scenic lighting of the Fremantle Arts Centre, we awaited the announcement of the winner of the 2022 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award, while hearing from 18 Fremantle Press authors pitching their newly published books. Our witty MCs and authors, Helen Milroy and Holden Sheppard, opened the evening followed by an Acknowledgement […]

I live on a rural bush retreat in Western Australia’s Great Southern region, and have been writing stories obsessively since childhood. After completing a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing at Curtin University, my short fiction began to win or be placed in writing competitions, with a number being published in various journals and anthologies […]

Gerard McCann grew up in Cottesloe in the 1950s and 60s, the second of five boys. Staunch Catholicism had the boys on their knees at night and Sunday mornings, but otherwise running free, exploring and adventuring in the streets and neighbouring gardens. He studied Architecture at the Perth Tech and UWA, and specialised in heritage […]

Entranced by the power of words from birth, Marie O’Rourke spent many years reading, analysing and teaching the stories of others before working up the nerve to start shaping her own. Her writing pushes against the tradition of first-person, past-tense, chronological, narrative memoir, hoping to capture the shape-shifting nature of memory and identity. Marie’s essays […]

Molly Schmidt is a writer and journalist, currently undertaking the Four Centres Emerging Writers Program with Fremantle Press. By day, she works as a radio producer and reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, where her passion for storytelling is put to good use. While writing her first manuscript, Molly has been collaborating with Noongar Elders […]

Joy Kilian-Essert, Gerard McCann, Marie O’Rourke and Molly Schmidt are in the running for $15,000 in prize money from the City of Fremantle and a publishing contract with Fremantle Press. All four Western Australian writers were shortlisted for the 2022 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award, which is in its 32nd year. Fremantle Press Publisher Georgia […]

Eleven Western Australian writers are longlisted and in the running for the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award. Judged anonymously, the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award is a biennial prize awarded to an unpublished manuscript by a Western Australian author for a work of fiction, narrative non-fiction or young adult fiction. The winner receives a cash […]