Nan Manefield Young Writers' Award

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Nan Manefield Writers' Award

Entries have now closed for the 2024 award. Thank you for your entries!

2024 marks 35 years of Stanton Library and North Sydney Council celebrating the writing talent of young people in our community with our annual Young Writers' Award since 1989.

Young people aged 11 to 18 years old are invited to submit either one poem or one short story not exceeding 750 words for the Nan Manefield Young Writers’ Award.

Meet the Judges

Erin Gough

The author of two fiction books for young adults: The Flywheel, which won the Ampersand Prize, and Amelia Westlake, winner of the Readings Young Adult Book Prize and the NSW Premier’s Ethel Turner Prize for Young Adult Fiction. Her third novel for young adults, Into the Mouth of the Wolf, will be published in May 2024.

Helena Fox

She lives by the sea in Wollongong, Australia, and runs creative writing workshops for young people. She graduated from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. Helena has travelled and lived all around the world, but of all her adventures, working with young people and helping them find and express their voice has brought her the greatest joy. How It Feels to Float is her debut novel.

Jaclyn Moriarty

Internationally best-selling author of novels for children, young adults and sometimes slightly older adults, including the books in the Kingdoms and Empires series. Her books have won the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award, the Aurealis Award and other prizes, and been shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council Book of the Year, the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards and the Nebula Prize.

Will Kostakis

A writer of all things, from celebrity news stories to cease and desist letters to tweets for professional wrestlers. He’s best known for his award-winning YA novels, The Sidekicks and The First Third. He was a teenager when his first novel, Loathing Lola, was published. His latest novel series, Monuments, has been shortlisted in the 2020 Indie Book Awards.

Sue Whiting

Acclaimed children’s and young adult author and editor with over twenty years of experience. She is the author of the bestselling book Missing and the award-winning A Swim in the Sea. The Book of Chance was shortlisted for the 2021 CBCA Book of the Year Awards and Highly Commended in the 2021 Davitt Awards.