Young Australian Christian Writer Award

Put your words to work!

SparkLit nurtures writers that engage meaningfully with culture, bringing the Word of God into conversation with current local needs. The Young Australian Christian Writer Award encourages emerging Christian authors.

Award criteria

A $2,500 prize is given for the best unpublished manuscript by an Australian citizen under 30 years of age. Supplementary awards may be made. The winning work will explore a Christian perspective or theme and incorporate, explain or encourage Christian life and values.

Entries are judged with an eye to the:
Original nature and content of the work.
Literary style, including suitability for the target audience.
Contribution that the work makes in meeting a need for Christian writing in Australia.

2024 Results

Winner

2024 Young Australian Christian Writer Award

Shannae Ku from New South Wales won the 2024 Young Australian Christian Writer Award with her manuscript Dusty Wings.

This is what the judges had to say about Dusty Wings

This engaging allegory explores the role of the church in reaching the lost. The author has created convincing characters and a coherent fantasy world that comfortably and naturally hosts big theological and missiological themes.

Extract from Dusty Wings

Zoe found Faith sitting on the floor of the bathroom, a large wooden box on her lap. Her face drained of colour. With the limited storage space in the apartment, the unused bathtub had been the only place big enough to contain the box.
The lid was secured shut by a latch, but the pane of glass set in its middle revealed the contents within. Zoe’s wings fluttered, beating weakly against its confines.
Faith raised her head. “I thought you were just hiding them with your hair, like before.”
Zoe knelt in front of her, feeling the ache in her back more keenly than before.
“Why is the box locked?” Faith whispered.
“They broke out of every other kind of containment we tried.”
“But they’re trapped!” Faith’s eyes were glistening now.
Zoe shifted uncomfortably. “I guess that’s one way of looking at it, but it’s only temporary.”
“But why?”
Zoe chewed the inside of her cheek. How to explain this to a child?
“Are you scared people will get mad at you again?”
“Well, that’s part of it,” Zoe said carefully. “Sometimes, people get scared of things they don’t understand. When my sister and I came here, we wanted to help the Grounded City. But there are a lot of people who don’t want us here, so I removed my wings so that I look more normal. That way, they can see we’re not so different to everyone else. Eventually, they might listen.”

2022 Results

Winner

2022 Young Australian Christian Writer Award

Nichola Chadwick from New South Wales won the 2022 Young Australian Christian Writer Award with her poetry collection Breathe on Me.

Nichola invites you to read and engage with her work. 

This is what the judges had to say about Breath on Me

Close, intricate and consistent, this collection of poems traces the writer’s journey as she grapples with questions of God’s character. Rich metaphors make her doubt and struggle, as well as her awe at the majesty of creation, relatable. Chadwick’s language is powerful and mature. She reveals a complex understanding of the nature of God, moving from fear of the idea of his presence, to fear in his presence.

“Breath” from Breathe on Me

Is the thickness of the stars amidst their blackness
really the embrace of your cupped hands fused around us?
Maybe divine hands glitter
or perhaps you’re wearing evening gloves.
It looks like space to me.

You evade and tangle me
standing small on this tiny earth.
Your breath brushes past my ear
when I have lost mine
and I lose mine
when I look at the sun, that inextricable elixir
gazing life and glaring death
when I watch bees slung low with pollen
sharing whispers across blooms
when opaque eyes clear into galaxies
and the soul’s breadth sings
when a lofty peak bows its head
permits me to stand upon it
and behold

–

But is it not simply my own lost breath
blowing back in my face?

–

Breathe on me.

Take off those illusionist gloves
Let me see your palms patterning the sky

Second Prize

2022 Young Australian Christian Writer Award

Stephanie Cluff from Queensland won Second Prize in the 2022 Young Australian Christian Writer Award with her manuscript Yield.

This is what the judges had to say about Yield

A fascinating fusion of poetry, advice and short dialogues exploring shame and trust, human wisdom and godly wisdom. This collection invites the reader into God’s loving presence to engage with him amidst doubt, pain and pondering.

Extract from ‘Willingness to be Wrong’ in Yield

Father: Willingness. I look for willingness.

Me: Okay, so you don’t need parents to “have it all together,” you want willingness. Willingness for what?

Father: Willingness to be wrong. Willingness for me to teach them. Willingness to learn. I want people who are ready to let me father them—people who let me love them.

Me: We can be babies when we have our own babies. We may think we’re big, responsible and tough, but we’re like little children having our own little children.

Father: Yes. Exactly. Little children. The process humbles you. And it’s supposed to. Pride cannot enter my kingdom. It’s too stiff and rigid. Only softness can enter. You can enter as goo on the floor if you need to, but you can’t enter with your armour of self-effort — “I can do it,” “I know what’s best,” “I’ve got this”.

Me: You want us to say, “I don’t got this?”

Father: Yes, of course!

2021 Results

Winner

2021 Young Australian Christian Writer Award

Rémy Chadwick from Victoria won the 2021 Young Australian Christian Writer Award with Creativity and Faith in Postmodern Australia: Selected Writings.

Rémy invites you to read and engage with his work.

This is what the judges had to say about Creativity and Faith in Postmodern Australia

The author employs a wide range of styles and genres—essay, homage, homily, literary criticism—to explore the ways in which the crucified and resurrected Christ challenges our fickle and competitive consumer culture. He is insightful, polemical and persuasive, and his voice is versatile and resounding. An effective apologist for his generation.

An extract from Creativity and Faith in Postmodern Australia

Beauty is evidence of premeditated grace. It is the joy of God materialised.

In the Book of Job, when God finally responds to Job’s cries for an explanation of his suffering, he offers no theological argument, nor explicit sympathy, nor reference to Job’s circumstances. Instead, he uses poetry.

God sings of what he has created: the humble and the great, the gentle and the terrible. Have a read of Job 38–41. God stops to pay tribute to his design for the weather. He casts the constellations—which men like Job named—as living creatures ruling the Earth in a firmamental drama. God’s theodicy includes even the wild donkey.

Job cannot argue with such a performance. He remains in silent awe, in ashes, humbled beyond even his sufferings. I wonder what Job must have felt in that moment? Perhaps a sense of limitless love. A sense that not even his ruin can blemish the indestructible joy God has poured out in all things. A sense that he is no longer himself, having witnessed in a fraction of time the torrential majesty of his Maker’s hands.

2020 Results

Winner

2020 Young Australian Christian Writer Award

Daniel Li from Victoria won the 2020 Young Australian Christian Writer Award with his manuscript Being Mulaney.

This is what the judges had to say about Being Mulaney

Our spiritual leaders care for us. But who cares for them? What does it mean to share the weight of ministry? In this honest and gentle narrative, a young Christian confronts the loneliness of leadership, burnout and a family history of suicide. The writing is tight yet intimate and poetic. A timely reminder to bear one another’s burdens and point each other to the grace and peace that surpasses understanding.

An extract from Being Mulaney

The room was so impeccably clean.

Michael walked over to the boxes. Thousands of letters in all different sizes—some written in blue, red, purple ink—all dated like a macabre time line. “These are …”

Sarah nodded. “Letters to himself. He’d never let me read them. Nobody knew him. Maybe I will now.”

Sarah stood alone and vacant. The boys shut the door behind her. It was 1:48 am.

They lay on the floor of the lounge room. They thought they would hear muffled tears. But there was nothing. Not even the shuffling of paper. They heard only the churning clockwork of Sarah’s heart.

Michael looked at Charles with eyes deeper and wearier than any boy should have. “I’m scared.”

“What of?”

“It’s like my blood is calling to me. All the men in my family have found their answer in swinging from trees.”

“And you think you will too?”

“I can’t—” he looked around wildly, “I can’t say.”

Second Prize

2020 Young Australian Christian Writer Award

Caroline Dehn from Victoria won Second Prize in the 2020 Young Australian Christian Writer Award with her manuscript The Birdkeeper, and Other Forms of Myth.

This is what the judges had to say about The Birdkeeper, and Other Forms of Myth

If we keep saying “no” to love and hope, how many more times will it come knocking? How can we recognise freedom when we are used to living in chains? This collection of myth-like stories explores the supernatural anxieties and supernal fantasies of childhood where beauty, love and hope do battle with fear and darkness.

An extract from The Birdkeeper, and Other Forms of Myth

This time, the quiet settles in. We do not speak for a long time, both of us staring out at my back garden. 

I can’t see to its end for mist. I haven’t been able to for years. But I try assertively to preserve the memory of what that was like: to sit and gaze from one end of the garden to the other through unobstructed air. In the same way, I remember the walls, towering high, presidential. Most of them lie in piles, now. They have for years.

Jonah straightens suddenly. I hear what he has heard: a sound, strange and unfamiliar, half melodic and half talkative.

“Listen,” he whispers. 

The sound rattles on in a joyous little chaos of noise.

“What is it?”

I am startled, amazed.

“It’s a bird.”

Third Prize

2020 Young Australian Christian Writer Award

Stephen Reed from New South Wales won Third Prize in the 2020 Young Australian Christian Writer Award with his manuscript The Cartographer’s Presence.

This is what the judges had to say about The Cartographer’s Presence

Arcos grapples with the oppression and suffering he witnesses as he journeys through a fantastical world not so different from our own. The narrative is well-paced and complemented by excellent drawings. This tapestry of
biblical allegories prompts us to look anew at our own lives and aspirations.

An extract from The Cartographer’s Presence

He has mapped it all out. Sketched the long and twisting coastlines, the far reaching deserts, the high and lofty mountain ridges.

But the most amazing part, my son! The Cartographer is not a distant Map Maker. He is close! 

He made a path for them to follow, and guided them along it. Our ancestors had the Cartographer with them, my son, but they did not have a land. 

They lived like nomads, roaming the wilderness, climbing the mountains, traversing the valleys, carrying their tents wherever they went. Setting up their shelters wherever the Cartographer led. 

They were always on the move, ever searching, ever journeying. Never staying in one place. 

That is why we live in shelters this week, my son. To remember our mothers and fathers and the way they lived in times long passed. How the Cartographer faithfully guided them.

For he had a destination in mind for them, a land where they could build lasting homes. 

All Results

2022 Young Australian Christian Writer Award

Winner. Nichola Chadwick for Breathe on Me
Second Prise. Stephanie Cluff for Yield
Open 2022 awards results and judges’ comments.

2021 Young Australian Christian Writer Award

Winner. Rémy Chadwick for Creativity and Faith in Postmodern Australia
Honourable Mention. Tanya Strydom for The Watch Collector
Open 2021 awards results and judges’ comments.

2020 Young Australian Christian Writer Award

Winner. Daniel Li for Being Mulaney
Second Prize. Caroline Dehn for The Birdkeeper, and Other Forms of Myth
Third Prize. Stephen Reed for The Cartographer’s Presence
Open 2020 awards results and judges’ comments.

2019 Young Australian Christian Writer Award

Winner. Eden Annesley for Tom and Eva
Second Prize. Zoe Boyle for La Monde
Open 2019 awards results and judges’ comments.

2018 Young Australian Christian Writer Award

The award was withheld in 2018.
Open 2018 awards results and judges’ comments.

2017 Young Australian Christian Writer Award

Winner. E P George for The Bidura Effect
Second Prize. Rachel Sharp for The Unhumans
Open 2017 awards results and judges’ comments.

2016 Young Australian Christian Writer Award

Winner. Miriam Dale for The Weight of Hope
Second Prize. Rebecca Lang for The Sprinkling of Unforced Rhythms
Third Prize. Jim Schirmer for The Way of the Rabbi
Open 2016 awards results and judges’ comments.

2015 Young Australian Christian Writer Award
Winner. Tim Sharp for Undying
Second Prize. Trudy Adams for The Sunshine List
Third Prize. Sarah Backholer and Rebecca Nisbet for Seasons of Grace
Open 2015 awards results and judges’ comments.

2014 Young Australian Christian Writer Award
Winner. Heidi Waddell for The Bridge
Second Prize. Joshua Maule for Isesomo
Third Prize. Chantelle Pitt for Loving Floyd
Open 2014 awards results and judges’ comments.

Australian Christian Book of the Year

Young Australian Christian Writer Award

Australian Christian Teen Writer Award