AAWP / Westerly Magazine Life Writing Prize 2025

The Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP) and Westerly Magazine are proud to offer a prize for Life Writing. 

The Prize—Publication Pathway and Networking Opportunity 

In 2025, the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP) and Westerly Magazine are offering a prize for Life Writing. We welcome submissions of autobiography, biography, memoir, and essays. We celebrate Life Writing as a rumination upon memory and experience and encourage creative and hybrid approaches. 

The prize is open to writers at all stages of their journey; emerging and established writers are welcome to enter. The prize recognises excellence in nonfiction, creative nonfiction and hybrid modes of storytelling. Hybrid storytelling is broadly conceived as storytelling that crosses traditional boundaries of nonfiction and creative nonfiction and/or is experimental in form. 

We invite you to send Life Writing submissions of up to 3500 words. The winner will receive a $500 cash prize, a one-year subscription to Westerly, and conference fees to attend the annual conference of the AAWP, where they will be invited to read from their work. Please see item 3 (Terms and conditions). The winner’s work will be considered for publication by Westerly. 

We encourage you to take advantage of this stunning opportunity to celebrate diverse interpretations of nonfiction, creative nonfiction and hybrid modes of storytelling, and be welcomed into the thriving community of writers associated with the AAWP.

For further information, please visit: http://www.aawp.org.au/news/opportunities/ 

If you have queries or questions about the AAWP’s prizes, please write to: prizes@aawp.org.au

The submission fee per entry is $20. Conditions of Entry and Terms and Conditions are below.

Conditions of Entry

1. This competition is open to writers at any stage of their career. Staff members of Westerly are ineligible to enter, as are AAWP Executive Committee Members.

2. The Prize will be launched at the AAWP annual conference. Submissions close at midnight (local time) on June 30, 2025. Late submissions will not be accepted. The winner will be announced on the AAWP website and the Westerly website no later than September 30, 2025.

3. Entries should not exceed 3500 words.

4. Entries may address any theme, and take any form associated with life writing. 

5. When submitting your work (via Submittable), please use the section marked ‘Cover Letter’ to add your full name, your preferred contact details (email and phone) and a 100-word author bio (as you would like it to appear on any prize announcements).

6. Suggested formatting for the entry is as follows — line spacing: 1.5, font size: 12-point, font: Times New Roman or Garamond.

7. The author’s full name should not appear anywhere on the work. Judging is technically blind, with the concession Life Writing may include identifying characteristics.

8. Authors may enter as many times as they wish. Subsequent entries incur a separate fee.

9. The AAWP and Westerly reserve the right to disqualify any entry that breaches the Conditions of Entry. The entrant will be provided with written notification of the disqualification. If an entry is disqualified, no refund will be given.

10. Entries may not be altered after they have been submitted.

11. The judges’ verdict is final. The judges will not enter into correspondence or discussion about the outcome. 

12. The award is for unpublished writing, including online publication.

Terms and Conditions

1. The AAWP will not reproduce any entries without the express permission of the author. Westerly will consider the winning entry for publication. If published, Westerly will require the right to reproduce the work. Copyright otherwise remains with the winning author. If required, a copyright licence will be negotiated after the Prize has been awarded. Copyright of all other submitted work remains with the entrants. 

2. The winner will receive $500 in prize money, to be paid via bank transfer and a one-year subscription to Westerly. 

3. AAWP conference fees (negotiated annually) are provided for the winner. The AAWP conference subsidy for the winner includes conference attendance (and all the benefits that entails). Extra fees (i.e. for the conference dinner, or for special activities such as workshops or tours) are the responsibility of the winner. Travel and accommodation are the responsibility of the winner. 

4. Publication in Westerly is not guaranteed.

5. The winning entries will not be edited or altered by AAWP without the consent of the author. 

6. If your work includes Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) and you inform us of this, AAWP will acknowledge the language group or Indigenous community with an appropriate notice of custodial interest, to be negotiated with you.