Dinny O’Hearn Fellowships

Applications for the 2024 Dinny O'Hearn Fellowship have closed. Please visit the Dinny O'Hearn Fellowship page here for further information.

2024

Winner

Ledya Khamou 'Lunch Break'

Naarm–based writer Ledya Khamou has been awarded the Dinny O'Hearn Fellowship 2024 for their proposed collection of contemporary short fiction. The collection follows and centres Middle Eastern narrators, and explores themes of queerness, obsession, and love. Ledya's prose is refreshing and original, with a wonderful aliveness of voice, characterisation and place. The world created in the story is at once familiar – a café, a horrible boss, a playground – and strange – bordering on obsession and the grotesque. The selection committee warmly congratulate Ledya and look forward to the development of their collection.

Commended

Indigo Bailey 'Serverine Sees'

Indigo Bailey's short fiction is assured and sophisticated, positioning itself within a tradition of innovative Australian writing that attends to the absurd, the magical, and the embodied. Indigo's artistry with language and lyricism is impressive, and the selection committee look forward to seeing more of their work collected and published.

Eleanor Arnold–Moore 'Anamnesis'

Eleanor Arnold–Moore's poetry deals with themes of chronic illness through an attentiveness to the images, rhythms, and closed spaces of medical care and persistent fatigue. Eleanor's poetry is both technically complex and extremely moving. The selection committee congratulate Eleanor and look forward to their collection.

Selection committee

• Dr Odette Kelada, Creative Writing, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts
• Dr Elizabeth MacFarlane, Creative Writing, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts
• Dr Lynda Ng, English Literary Studies, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts

2021

Winner

Julieta Caldas 'Nothing Base'

Melbourne–based writer Julieta Caldas has been awarded the Dinny O'Hearn Fellowship 2021 for her proposed book–length lyric epic poem entitled 'Nothing Base'. This is an intriguing and ambitious project that brings together a multi–layered story of migration, the relationship between an elderly grandmother and her granddaughter, and a sea journey from England to Australia in the near future amidst the catastrophic impact of climate change. Caldas' verse shows signs of genuine inventiveness and flair, and a strong feel for the poetics in the work. The selection committee warmly congratulate Julieta for her scale of vision and the commitment to exploring a contemporary transhistorical epic.

Selection committee

• Dr Grant Caldwell, Creative Writing, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts
• Professor Ronan McDonald, Gerry Higgins Chair of Irish Studies, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts
• Professor Denis Varney, English and Theatre Studies, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts

2018

Winner

Eda Gunaydin 'The Rock is a Hard Place'

Sydney writer Eda Gunaydin’s outstanding short story collection in progress, 'A Rock is a Hard Place', contributes to the broader tradition of diasporic literature. The writer engages uniquely Turkish migration histories, reflecting on Turkish people's roles as guest workers, their changeable relationship with whiteness and complex histories of Turkish ethnonationalism. Other themes touched on include immigrant attitudes to work and sexuality, Anzac myths, and the way multicultural societies render Muslims Other. The selection committee warmly congratulate Eda for a story collection that nuances, and makes complex, stereotypes of multicultural urban experience. Gunaydin's tales of cultural, social and economic survival are dramatised with exhilarating parodic wit and pathos, providing a distinctly original, often comic, perspective on Turkish disaporic experience.

Commended

Kim Ho 'Panacea: Or: The Very Real, Definitely Not Falsified History of Lasseter's Reef'

VCA playwright Kim Ho's 'Panacea: Or: The Very Real, Definitely Not Falsified History of Lasseter's Reef' delves into a mythological Australian story of gold and greed and the hunt for a fictional reef of gold. The play refers directly to the purported discovery, announced by Harold Bell Lasseter in 1929 and 1930, of a fabulously rich gold deposit in a remote and desolate corner of central Australia. The selection committee felt that Kim Ho's play script fragment despatched clichés of larrikin mateship and unrealisable colonial dreams of getting rich fast with great parodic verve. The sharp, economical dialogue was also commended as a writing technique bringing this post–federation history of failure and deception alive.

Selection committee

• Professor Ken Gelder, English and Theatre Studies, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts
• Dr Amanda Johnson, Creative Writing, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts
• Dr Odette Kelada, Creative Writing, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts

2016

Winner

Anupama Pilbrow 'A poetics of porosity and the ravage space'

The selection committee agreed that Anupama's poems were both compelling and of a remarkably high standard. They spoke to an Australian/South Asian diaspora, to street life and the life of things and people, of relationships, past lives and futures. The poems were formally and linguistically fascinating, mixing English with Hindi and Marathi phrases with the aim – as some excellent accompanying notes put it – of 'reframing pluralism as the cultural norm'. This is inventive, thoughtful and vibrant work. The selection committee look forward to the publication of this collection and are certain it will be met with critical acclaim.

Selection committee

• Professor Ken Gelder, Co–Director of the Australian Centre, University of Melbourne
• Dr Eddie Paterson, Creative Writing, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts
• Dr Elizabeth MacFarlane, Creative Writing, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts

2013

Winner

Amy Barker 'Paradise Earth'

Amy Barker's developing novel explores the Port Arthur massacre as a national and individual traumascape. Her narrative is deeply inward and managed with a keen eye.

Commended

Julia Prendergast 'The Earth Does Not Get Fat'

Janine Mikosza 'Monkey Boy'

Joanne Riccioni 'The Onorati'

Selection committee

• Professor Chris Wallace–Crabbe, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts
• Dr Delia Falconer, Senior Lecturer, University of Technology Sydney
• Dr Lisa Gorton, Alumni Member, University of Melbourne
• Nick Sharman, Media and Communications Lecturer, University of Melbourne