Open Short Story Competition

Entries open 1st February 2026

*Details of residency to be finalised after completion of awards event.

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Can you tell us a story?

Everyone can write at least one good story. That was the belief of J. F. Archibald, the editor and founder of the famous nineteenth-century weekly, The Bulletin, who invited his readers to become contributors. It was this encouragement that led Joseph Furphy, working in his brother’s foundry at Shepparton, to write his ‘offensively Australian’ novel, Such is Life, using the pseudonym of ‘Tom Collins’. The book, full of stories derived from Joseph’s experience in the Riverina and told in a voice uniquely his own, is now acknowledged to be a classic of Australian literature

In the spirit of Archibald and honouring the author of Such is Life, the Furphy Literary Award has been established to promote and extend the tradition of story telling, both factual and fictional, that is so much part of Australian life.

There will be an annual award for a prose work, which may be fiction or narrative non-fiction, by a writer aged 18 years or more at the date of closing of entries.

To enquire about the Furphy Literary Award email fla@furphystory.com.au

Meet the Judges

We thank Furphy Literary Award judge John Kerr – a founding judge of the competition – for his eclectic and wise judgement and profound insights into the variety of stories that rose to the top each year. Thank you John, we are sorry to see you go.

We are very excited to announce the new judge to our senior judging panel is award winning writer, Cate Kennedy.

Anson Cameron

Anson Cameron is the award winning author of seven novels, two collections of short stories, a childhood memoir, and a biography of Neil Balme.

He has also penned something like half-a-thousand columns for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald while still waiting for his editor’s reply to the question, “Okay, but if I agree to write a column, what do you want me to write about?”

His sad observation of the reading public is that many of them aren’t smart enough to see what they’re being accused of – otherwise he’d have offended everyone by now.

Stephanie Holt

Stephanie Holt is an award-winning writer, editor and educator. Formerly a Meanjin editor, Head of Operations at Overland, and Director of the Institute of Professional Editors, Stephanie Holt currently freelances as a writer and editor.

John Harms

John Harms is a writer, historian, and publisher. His books include Confessions of a Thirteenth Man, Memoirs of a Mug Punter, Loose Men Everywhere, Life as I Know It, and numerous editions of The Footy Almanac annual. He lives in the Barossa Valley.

Margaret Hickey

Margaret Hickey is a playwright and an award-winning, best-selling author from rural Victoria. Her short stories have been published in Meanjin, Island magazine, Westerly and The Big Issue and have won and been shortlisted for many prizes. Her plays have been performed all over Australia and read in New York. Her novel Cutters End was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Debut Crime award and won the DANGER award. Her next novel Stone Town was shortlisted for the Davitt Award for Female Crime Writers and Broken Bay was released in June 2023. Her latest novel, The Creeper was released in 2024.

Cate Kennedy

Cate Kennedy’s stories have been published internationally and her two collections, Dark Roots (Scribe, 2006) and Like a House on Fire (Scribe, 2012) have both been on the Victorian VCE syllabus for several years. She is working on a new collection while exploring songwriting, poetry and collaborating on a screenplay – although short stories and a good yarn will always be her first love. She works on the faculty of Pacific University’s MFA in Creative Writing program as a teacher and advisor, and won the Furphy Award in 2022.

Thornton McCamish

Thornton McCamish is a journalist and author, and a former editor of The Big Issue magazine. His biography of Alan Moorehead, Our Man Elsewhere, won the NSW Premier’s Douglas Stewart Prize for Nonfiction and was shortlisted for the 2017 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. His biography of the Australian art critic Robert Hughes is due to be published next year.