Peter Carey Short Story Award returns for 2023
Moorabool Shire Libraries and local writers Jem Tyley-Miller and Wayne Marshall are proud to announce the 2023 Peter Carey Short Story Award. Born and raised in Bacchus Marsh, Peter Carey is arguably Australia’s greatest living writer. The author of fourteen critically acclaimed novels and four works of non-fiction, Carey has won the Miles Franklin three times, and the Man Booker twice. Early in his career Carey published two short story collections of rare and startling power—The Fat Man in History and War Crimes—both of which remain, forty years on, unrivalled in their mastery of the short story form. It seems only natural to name this award after one of Moorabool’s (and Australia’s) most gifted and imaginative storytellers.
The award is for short stories between 2000 - 3000 words, and is open to all Australian residents.
Longlisted entries in 2023 will be judged by Anne Casey-Hardy.
Anne Casey-Hardy (pictured) was born in Fremantle and grew up in Melbourne as the eldest of seven children. She began writing after a long career as a research librarian and advocate for families of premature babies. In 2018, she won the Peter Carey Short Story Award for Being the Mother. Since then, her short stories and poetry have been published in Meanjin, Island, Overland, Westerly and several anthologies.
She is the author of Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls (Scribner 2022).
Anne lives in Melbourne’s west with her husband, on Bunurong land.
The winning entry receives $2000, while the runner-up wins $1000. The first and second-placed stories will be published in the summer edition of Meanjin, with digital publication to follow shortly after the awards announcement in June 2023 (pending the editorial process). Both stories will receive Meanjin’s standard contributor fee for their work.
In 2023, we will also be presenting one outstanding entry with the Moorabool Shire Libraries’ Best Local Entry Award. Writers who enter the Peter Carey Short Story Award and who live, work or study in Moorabool Shire are eligible for consideration. The winning story will receive $500.
Entries are now open and close at 6pm AEDT on Thursday March 16 2023. Entries will be accepted via online application only and will be judged blind, so please, no names on your work. The entry fee is $15 per story and you may enter as many times as you like. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please let us know immediately if your piece has been accepted elsewhere. See our Terms & Conditions for further details.
The longlist will be posted on our website in May, while the winner and runner-up will be announced at an awards ceremony held at the Bacchus Marsh library on Saturday 3 June 2023 at 2pm.
Good luck to everyone.
Read the full Terms and Conditions here(PDF, 100KB)
In order to discover Australia’s best short stories, we believe it essential to have those at the top of their game judging all levels of our competition. Our longlisting judges are accomplished, amazing writers who love the short story form as much as we do.
Brooke Dunnell
Brooke Dunnell’s short fiction has been widely published in journals and anthologies, including Best Australian Stories, Meanjin, Westerly, The Big Issue fiction edition, New Australian Fiction 2021 and New Australian Stories 2.She also works as a workshop facilitator and editor. Her short story collection Female(s and) Dogs was shortlisted for the 2020 Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award and the 2021 Woollahra Digital Literary Award. Her first novel, The Glass House, won the Fogarty Literary Award in 2021 and was published by Fremantle Press in 2022.
Image credit: Jess Gately
Eugen Bacon
Eugen Bacon is an African Australian author of several novels and fiction collections. She’s a 2022 World Fantasy Award finalist. Her short story collection Danged Black Thing was a finalist in the 2022 British Science Fiction Association Awards, Foreword Indies Awards, Australian Shadows Awards and Aurealis Awards. Eugen was announced in the honor list of the 2022 Otherwise Fellowships for ‘doing exciting work in gender and speculative fiction’. She has won, been longlisted or commended in international awards, including the Bridport Prize, Copyright Agency Prize, Horror Writers Association Diversity Grant, Otherwise, Rhysling, Ditmar Awards and Nommo Awards for Speculative Fiction by Africans. Visit her website at eugenbacon.com and Twitter feed @EugenBacon
Laurie Steed
Laurie Steed is an award-winning author from Perth, Western Australia. His debut novel, You Belong Here, was published in 2018 and was shortlisted for the 2018 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards. His second book, Love, Dad: Baby-Steps into Parenting, will be published in 2023, and his third book, Greater City Shadows, won the 2021 Henry Handel Richardson Flagship Fellowship for Short Story Writing and was shortlisted for the 2022 Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript.
Jem Tyley-Miller
Jem Tyley-Miller’s short stories are published in Meanjin, Overland, Margaret River Press, Scarlett Stiletto – The 14th Cut, and other places. She recently won the Body in the Library Award at the 2022 Scarlet Stilettos, and has previously been shortlisted for the S.D. Harvey, Alan Marshall, Write Around the Murray, and Stuart Hadow Short Story Prize. Her novel-length fiction has been longlisted for both the 2021 Bath Novel Prize and 2020 Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award. When not writing, Jem directs extras on film sets, and co-organises the Peter Carey Short Story Award in her spare time.
Wayne Marshall
Wayne Marshall’s stories have appeared in Overland, Going Down Swinging, Kill Your Darlings, Island, Review of Australian Fiction, and other places. His short story collection Shirl (then Frontier Sport) was shortlisted for the 2019 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, and was published by Affirm Press in 2020. He is the co-founder of the Peter Carey Short Story Award.
