Congratulations to the winners of the Geelong Writers Prize 2025:
1st Prize Mel King for her story ‘Illidan’
2nd Prize Jesse Harman for his story ‘The Cold’
3rd Prize Mel King for her story ‘The Landlord’s Ladder’
Honourable Mention Tanya Scott for her story ‘The Climb’
Congratulations to all the authors of the shortlisted stories:
Mel King for her story ‘Illidan’
Jesse Harman for his story ‘The Cold’
Mel King for her story ‘The Landlord’s Ladder’
Tanya Scott for her story ‘The Climb’
Louisa Bath for her story ‘The Queen’s Spy’
Louise Briggs for her story ‘Dirt is but Matter in the Wrong Place’
Belinda Donald for her story ‘The Road to Condo’
Gail Griffin for her story ‘No Excuses Allowed’
Jenny Macauley for her story ‘Remotely NQR’
Adam Stone for his story ‘Momentarily Free’
Thank you to Liz Monument for her time and expertise in selecting the award winners. Liz’s comments on the winning stories can be read below.
First Prize – Illidan by Mel King
Set in Geelong, this story has plenty of luscious scene-setting description which quickly situates the reader in a familiar place, whilst revealing with light touches that bad things are happening. The youthful narrator bounces off the page, and the antagonists are surprising and entertaining. It’s great to read a short story with a dark heart plus light humour, and to see the protagonist win a victory at the end.
Second Prize – The Cold by Jesse Harman
This story has an unusual setting which is very nicely rendered. The small cast works brilliantly, as does the snapshot-in-time as the reader is plunged into the narrator’s crisis from the moment the story opens. The ending is surprising and uplifting given that the story deals with death.
Third Prize – The Landlord’s Ladder by Mel King
The voice of the first-person narrator makes this story – he’s sassy, irreverent and often witty as he navigates the reader through the domestic minutiae of his ordinary life. The twist at the end of the story leaves a question mark over what happens next, and I couldn’t help thinking that he might just have got what he deserved.
Honourable Mention – The Climb by Tanya Scott
The first-person narrator describes the world around him with clarity and often unusual descriptive word choices. Snapshots of his life are beautifully rendered which makes the ending all the more poignant. It’s impossible not to feel for the narrator’s circumstances and to pity the choices he makes. An emotional roller coaster of a story.
JUDGE – LIZ MONUMENT
Dr Liz Monument FSAScot
Novelist, Script Doctor & Writing Coach
Liz Monument writes, edits and coaches fiction, including manuscript assessment. She works with selected international literary agencies to accelerate the submission process for writers of talent. Liz is a tutor on the Jericho Writers Ultimate Novel Writing Programme (International). She is the author of works of fiction, including The Eternity Fund and Iteration.
The Geelong Writers Prize 2025 – The Shortlist book was launched 27 August 2025 and is available for purchase here.
For those writers that didn’t make the shortlist this year, we appreciate the time and effort put in to your submission and we encourage you to keep writing! There are more competitions and opportunities to be acknowledged for your hard work in the future.
COMPETITION GUIDELINES
- The competition is open to writers who live, work or study in the City of Greater Geelong, Borough of Queenscliffe, Surf Coast, Colac-Otway or Golden Plains shires
- The competition is also open to writers who are members of Geelong Writers, wherever they live
- Entries must be a minimum of 2,000 words to a maximum of 3,000 words, excluding the title
- All works must have a title
- Entry fees are $20 per story; $15 per story for Geelong Writers members
- Entrants may submit up to three works, each at the specified entry fee
- Entries must be received, and entry fees paid, by midnight on 30 April 2025
- All entries must be in English, double-spaced, use 12 point Times New Roman font and may be Word documents (.doc or .docx) or PDFs
- Entrant’s name must not appear anywhere on the work as the pieces will be blind judged
- Stories must be the original work of the entrant and must not have been published (personal blog and social media posts excepted ) or been awarded a prize in any competition
- Simultaneous submissions are permitted; however, the writer must notify us if a story is accepted for publication or is longlisted or shortlisted in another competition
- Fees will not be refunded
- No corrections will be accepted, nor any correspondence entered into
- Authors retain copyright of their work
- The judge’s decision is final
- Any member of the committee of management of Geelong Writers involved in the pre-reading process prior to the final judging shall be precluded from entering
- In entering this competition
- You give permission for your work, should it be shortlisted, to be published in full or part on Geelong Writers website, and/or in any Geelong Writers publications
- You declare that the work submitted is your own original work
- You acknowledge that failure to abide by any of the stated rules may make your entry, or entries, ineligible.
Illustration: Writing. Gari Melchers, 1909. Courtesy of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). https://useum.org/artwork/Writing-Gari-Melchers-1909 https://collections.lacma.org/node/229095