2025 joanne burns Microlit Award

Newcastle Writers Festival and publisher Spineless Wonders are excited to announce the launch of the 2025 joanne burns Microlit Award. Melbourne writer and academic Cassandra Atherton and Canberra-based poet and academic, Paul Hetherington will judge the competition entries, which are invited from Hunter writers as well as writers from across Australia and from Australians living overseas.

The theme of this year’s competition is ‘ricochet’ and the maximum length of entries is 200 words. This year, the award judges will look for works which respond to artworks of any kind as well as writing on any topic which takes an unexpected trajectory. The competition deadline has been extended until 4 August, 2024.

This long-running award for microfiction and prose poems honours the work of experimental Australian poet joanne burns, who was the recipient of the prestigious NSW Premier’s Kenneth Slessor Award for Poetry.

There are both national and Hunter Region categories in the NWF/joanne burns Microlit Award. The national category is open to any person residing in Australia and to Australian citizens living anywhere(an entry fee of $15 applies to this category). The Hunter Region category is open to Hunter residents and is free to enter.

Cash prizes of $300 will be awarded to the winner of the national and Hunter categories. Finalists in the award will be offered publication, alongside invited contributors, in the Spineless Wonders’ microlit anthology, which will be launched at the 2025 Newcastle Writers Festival.

For more details and competition guidelines, visit the Spineless Wonders’ website