Nine Australian writers have been shortlisted for the 2025 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship, worth $20,000.
‘The 2025 Fellowship has attracted a strong field of high-quality proposals from writers across Australia,’ said Della Rowley, Hazel’s sister. ‘We were thrilled to see a large number of applications this year.’
‘The shortlist reflects a diverse range of subjects and literary approaches to biographical writing in Australia today. There’s detailed scholarly research as well as imagination and passion evident in the proposals.’
‘It is wonderful that the Fellowship we established in Hazel’s name continues to encourage and support Australian writers and biographers.’
The nine shortlisted writers are:
- Jennifer Martin (VIC), writing about Australian journalist Eva Sommer, inaugural winner of the Walkley award.
- Jo Oliver (NSW), for a biography of Australian artist Isobel Rae.
- Julienne van Loon (VIC), for a series of biographical essays about contemporary women scientists, ‘Women of the Future’.
- Lucas Jordan (VIC), writing ‘Touching the dream-time’, a biography of two Arrernte and Irish-Australian families in the Northern Territory.
- Melanie Saward (QLD), writing ‘With the Feathers’, a memoir and family history exploring connection to Country and culture, family, motherhood and grief.
- Michelle Scott Tucker (VIC), for a biography of Louisa Lawson, newspaper proprietor, poet, suffragist and mother of Henry Lawson.
- Michelle Staff (ACT), for a joint biography of feminist activists and sisters Bessie Rischbieth and Olive Evans.
- Monique Rooney (ACT), for a biography of Australian writer Ruth Park.
- Yen Tran (WA), writing a memoir of her Vietnamese family who came to Australia as refugees.
‘Writers Victoria is proud to be part of the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship, supporting Australian writers in their creative pursuits. This Fellowship is both an enduring legacy and a meaningful tribute to Hazel’s passion for biography,’ said Julie Skate, CEO of Writers Victoria.
The winner of the 2025 Fellowship will be announced on Wednesday 5 March at Adelaide Writers’ Week. This will follow the Hazel Rowley Memorial lecture to be given by the 2016 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellow Matthew Lamb in conversation with Clare Wright about his biography of Frank Moorhouse.
The judges of the 2025 Fellowship are writers Clare Wright and Christos Tsiolkas, with Della Rowley and Lynn Buchanan, Hazel’s close friend.
The Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship has a strong track record in enabling biographers and writers of memoirs to complete and publish their works. Nine of our recipients have published to date: Matthew Lamb (Frank Moorhouse: Strange Paths), Mandy Sayer (Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters: Australia’s First Female Filmmaking Team), Ann-Marie Priest (My Tongue is My Own: A Life of Gwen Harwood), Eleanor Hogan (Into the Loneliness: The Unholy Alliance of Ernestine Hill and Daisy Bates), Jacqueline Kent (Vida Goldstein: A Woman for Our Time), Gabrielle Carey (Only Happiness Here: In Search of Elizabeth von Arnim), Mary Hoban (An Unconventional Wife: The Life of Julia Sorell Arnold), Maxine Beneba Clarke (The Hate Race) and Stephany Steggall (Interestingly Enough… The Life of Tom Keneally).
About Hazel Rowley
“My books are about people who had the courage to break out of their confined world and help others to do the same.” – Hazel Rowley
Before her death in 2011, Hazel wrote four critically acclaimed biographies: Christina Stead: A Biography (1993), Richard Wright: The Life and Times (2001), Tête-à-Tête: The Lives and Loves of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre (2005) and Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage (2010). Erudite and accessible, these studies brought fresh attention to the lives and works of significant figures both nationally and internationally.
In 2021 Della Rowley and Lynn Buchanan published Life as Art: The biographical writing of Hazel Rowley (MUP), an edited collection of Hazel’s essays, talks and journal entries.
To find out more about the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship, visit this page on our website here.