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 […]

Australian independent booksellers have chosen Salt River Road by Molly Schmidt as one of their favourite books of 2023. Her novel, which won the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award in 2022, was one of four titles to make it onto the shortlist in the Debut Fiction category. Molly said she was so grateful for the […]

Seth Malacari, Dr Marcella Polain and Richard Rossiter are the 2024 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award judges. Alongside Fremantle Press publisher Georgia Richter, they will be responsible for choosing who will win the $15,000 prize money from the City of Fremantle and a publishing contract with Fremantle Press. Richard Rossiter, who has judged the award […]

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 […]

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 […]

Fremantle author Molly Schmidt has won the 2022 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award for her manuscript Salt River Road. She takes home a $15,000 cash prize and a publishing contract with Fremantle Press. Judged anonymously, the biennial prize is in its 32nd year and is presented to an emerging West Australian writer for their first […]

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 […]

Join us as we announce the 2022 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award winner and celebrate new releases at the Great Big Book Launch.

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 […]

Fremantle Library has stacked their shelves with an extensive new collection of books published by local Fremantle press writers. The library in the Walyalup Civic Centre has made more than 300 titles available for loan. The Fremantle Press collection includes both fiction and non-fiction, ranging from crime and historical novels to autobiographies, art and culture […]

Congratulations to Yuot A. Alaak, Kelly Canby, Jon Doust, Madelaine Dickie, Donna Mazza, Helen Milroy and Meg McKinlay, who are all one step closer to winning a Western Australian Premier’s Prize or Fellowship worth $15,000 and $60,000 respectively.

Fremantle Press writer Yuot A. Alaak said he’s ecstatic and beaming with excitement after learning his book, Father of the Lost Boys, is one of six titles shortlisted for the State Library of New South Wales’ Douglas Stewart Prize worth $40,000.

Novelists and contributors to Lines to the Horizon Mark Smith and Madelaine Dickie have both made the longlist for Adaptable, a program which seeks material from Australian and New Zealand writers for film or television adaptations. If successful, they’ll get the opportunity to pitch their work to screen industry professionals.

Fremantle Press is delighted to announce the forthcoming publication of Sharron Booth’s The Silence of Water in 2022. Described by the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award judges as vivid and deeply researched, the historical novel was awarded the 2020 Edith Cowan University School of Arts and Humanities Research Medal, an honour given to the highest […]

Karrinyup author Maria Papas has won the 2020 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award for her manuscript I Belong to the Lake. She takes home a $15,000 cash prize and a publishing contract with Fremantle Press.

Joanna Morrison’s manuscript, Still Dark, is shortlisted for the 2020 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award. If she wins, she’ll secure herself a publishing contract with Fremantle Press and a $15,000 cash prize from the City of Fremantle.

Jo Morrison began her writing career as a journalist, first in Perth and then in Fremantle. She soon realised she wanted to write fiction instead of news, although she contends that in some ways the two forms are not that different. While journalism is by definition factual, setting it well apart from fiction, both forms […]

Sharron Booth was born in Yorkshire and emigrated with her family to Western Australia in the 1970s. Her fiction and creative non-fiction have been published in The Australian, Southerly, LiNQ and other journals, and broadcast on ABC Radio.