2022 NEW ENGLAND THUNDERBOLT PRIZE
The New England Writers' Centre is proud to announce the winners and commended entries the 2022 New England Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing, with six prizes and commendations awarded to crime writers from all over Australia.
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We extend our thanks to all the authors who submitted their work this year, to our wonderful judges who had the challenge of finding winners amongst so many terrific entries and to our sponsors who make it possible for the NEWC to continue to run this nationally recognised competition and awards.
Click on the links to find out more about the winning authors, read their submissions and the Judges' reports and bios. Enjoy! |
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WINNERS
Poetry
"A Cautionary Tale" by Paris Rosemont Sponsored by the University of New England, Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education 
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All entries were judged anonymously, and the New England Award and Emerging Author Awards were chosen based on final commendations across all categories.
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COMMENDED
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Fiction
Highly commended: "The Turning Tide" by Robert Topping Commended: "Red Flags" by Dan Davies Non-Fiction Highly Commended: "Lunch with Andrew Kaljich" by Pippa Kay Commended: "Jungle Beast" by Robin Hammond |
Poetry
Highly commended: "Guillotine Act" by Jennifer Harrison Commended: "Six O'Clock" by Verity Laughton Commended: "Missing the Ruby" by Richenda Rudman Commended: "I Witness" by Jane O'Sullivan Youth Highly Commended: "League of Criminals" by Ebony Hill Commended: "Encounter" by Aaron Lee |
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David Grey | Fiction
David Grey grew up in Vanuatu on a steady diet of Belgian graphic novels and second-hand Enid Blyton books. Despite working in the field of criminal law, he remains cautiously optimistic about people in general. He would like to thank his wife Belinda for encouraging him to finally submit to the Thunderbolt Prize! |
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David Vernon | Non-Fiction
David Vernon is a writer, editor and publisher. In 2007 he won the non-fiction section of the ACT Writing and Publishing Awards with his book “Men at Birth.” This book, along with “Birth Stories” (Finch 2011) is now in its second edition. A keen short story writer his works have appeared in several anthologies and his non-fiction works on the ABC Website Unleashed, Sunday Life Magazine, The Australian Skeptic and The Canberra Times. He has been fortunate to win several short story competitions, including the Thunderbolt Prize for non-fiction in 2019 and 2021. In 2021 he released his first full length Australian history book, A Good Yarn. |
In 2010 he established the national short story competition “Stringybark Stories.” Since inception it has awarded over $30,000 in prizes. Details can be found on the website: www.stringybarkstories.net He is the principal of Stringybark Publishing, a bespoke publisher that specializes in memoir, history and anthologies. See: www.stringybarkpublishing.com.au. David served on the ACT Writers Centre Board from 2012 and was the Chair of the Centre from 2014-19.
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Paris Rosemont | Poetry
Paris Rosemont is Sydney-based poet combining her love of theatre and poetry into the art of performance poetry. Her poetry has been published in Verge Literary Journal, FemAsia Magazine, Red Room Poetry’s ‘Admissions’ and Heroines Anthology (vol.4.). Paris has performed her work at various events, including the Australian Poetry Slam Sydney Finals and Sydney Fringe Festival 2022. Paris has been a Living Stories Competition judge, WestWords Academian and writer-in-residence, as well as a Frontier Poetry scholarship recipient. She was awarded an Arts Access Australia mentorship, WestWords/Varuna Emerging Writers’ Residency and was named runner up for the Writing NSW- Varuna Fellowship 2022. |
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Jane O'Sullivan | New England Award
Jane has a PhD in Literature, and has had a lengthy career in the University and Secondary School education sectors. She has published in the areas of textual criticism, creative nonfiction and poetry. Her poetry collection, "Mondo Cane -Street Dogs of Italy' (2017) was published by Ginninderra Press. In 2021, Jane was shortlisted for the NEWC-Varuna Fellowship. Jane's main interests include writing fiction, painting, and walking with her dog along the creek lands and expanses of pine forest in her local area. |
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Dan Davies | Emerging Author
Dan Davies is a left-handed, semi-domesticated mammal. He attempts socio-cultural interaction through literature, art, and music, though in truth, he is somewhat anti-social and refuses to join the Twitters. His first love is the natural environment, but after devoting decades of toil to the revegetation of degraded landscapes, his body no longer tolerates repetitive manual labour, hence the need for his imagination to share the burden of sustaining existence. He likes stories that entertain and provoke thought and may be somewhat old fashioned in the sense that he believes a story should contain, as a bare minimum, a beginning, middle, and end. |
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Kiki Chen | Youth
Kiki Chen is a Year 8 student at Pymble Ladies’ College, NSW. She writes short stories in her free time and enjoys exploring different Australian experiences in her writing. Some of her other hobbies include reading, debating, and collecting bookmarks. She also plays the piano and is a percussionist in her school band. She plans to continue writing short stories and also try other writing styles such as creative non-fiction in the future. |