« Back

The Hope Prize short story competition

The Hope Prize, the Brotherhood of St Laurence’s national short story competition, encourages writers to explore resilience in the face of adversity.

Winners announced

We established The Hope Prize, thanks to the generosity of the late Prudence Myer and the support of her family, to encourage writing that transcends stereotypes of ‘the poor’ and reflects the resilience we know that people show in the face of poverty and testing times.

We are delighted to announce the winners of this short-story competition, after a rigorous judging process assisted by our publishing partner, Simon & Schuster, and leading book retailer Readings.

Congratulations to our prize-winning and commended authors

Winners

First prize: Finegan Kruckemeyer, Like Dresses in a Tree

Second prize: Tess Rowley, The Girl Who Wanted to Paint the Moon

Third Prize: Kim Kelly, MESSERSCHMITT

Highly commended authors

Alice Bishop, Saltwater

Melanie (Rees) Crouch, Lilly of the Locust Fields

Vicky Daddo, Run

Award for emerging writer under 18 (shared prize)

Eleanor George, Biographies of the British Monarchy

Veronica Hester, We Will Go On

Jenny Pang, The Space Between Stillness and Sleep

Women’s Writing Career Development Scholarships

Two scholarships were made available, thanks to a generous supporter, for women writers whose stories showed great promise. The scholarships, to enable women writers to further develop their skills, have been awarded to:

Melanie (Rees) Crouch

Vicky Daddo

Hope Prize anthology

A new short-story anthology, drawing from The Hope Prize awarded and commended stories, will be published by Simon & Schuster in time for Christmas 2018.

The book published by Simon & Schuster for the 2016 Hope Prize, Hope: An Anthology, is still available at Readings.

The judges: Cate Blanchett, Quentin Bryce and Kate Grenville

The eminent judges for the first competition again judged this year's Hope Prize. They are actor Cate Blanchett, former governor general Quentin Bryce and author Kate Grenville. They are passionate about defeating disadvantage and care deeply about encouraging good writing.

Cate Blanchett

What the judges said about the first Hope Prize

Quentin Bryce: "I admire the way the stories reveal the lives of people who so often go unnoticed in our society; stories filled with determination and human spirit about people who overcome the odds with courage and strength."

Cate Blanchett: "The finalists all revealed powerful perspectives on the world at large, and displayed unique, unpretentious and authentic voices."

Kate Grenville, on the story which won the first Hope Prize, 'Better Homes and Gardens' by Catherine Moffat: "The hope here isn’t that good things are going to happen, because they probably won’t. It’s that love is stronger than circumstance, and hope keeps love alive."

See the first Hope Prize list of winners.

Partners

The Hope Prize was made possible by the generosity of the late Prudence Myer and the support of her family, and the support of Simon & Schuster and Readings.