Griffith Review Emerging Voices Competition

Submissions are now open for the 2025 competition

Griffith Review has a distinguished track record of nurturing new voices, publishing creative thinkers and supporting our writers to establish enduring industry connections.

Our annual Emerging Voices competition calls for original submissions of fiction and creative non-fiction from 3,500 to 5,000 words. Entrants can write to any theme – but we're looking for new ideas, fresh voices and bold perspectives. We look for work that commands our attention.

For more information and to submit visit our For Writers page.

Emerging Voices Competition 2025 - terms and conditions of entry.

2024 Winners

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Lily Holloway

Lily Holloway is a powerlifting enthusiast and third-year MFA candidate at Syracuse University. They are published or forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Sundog Lit, Best New Zealand Poems, Peach Mag and Hobart After Dark. Their first chapbook was published in 2021 as part of Auckland University Press' AUP New Poets 8. Find them on Twitter and Instagram @milfs4minecraft.

Lily's winning story will be published in 2025. 

SarahKanake2024_creditLizzieMynard

Sarah Kanake is a short story writer and novelist with a PhD in Creative Writing. She teaches creative and professional writing at QUT and also works at State Library of Queensland. Her short fiction has been published in The Southerly, Kill Your Darlings, Award Winning Australian Writing and The Lifted Brow. She has been shortlisted for the Overland Short Story Prize, won the QUT Postraduate Writing Award and been longlisted for the Australian/Vogel's Award. Sing Fox to Me (2016) is her first (and only) novel. 

Sarah's winning story will be published in 2025. 

MCGUIRE, Myles

Myles McGuire's writing has been nominated for the Peter Carey Short Story Award, the Newcastle Short Story Award, the Monash Writing Prize and the QUT Writing Prize. In 2023 he was nominated for the Queensland Premier's Young Writers and Publishers Award. His work has been published in Griffith Review, Australian Literary Studies and Voiceworks. He is currently at work on a novel. 

Myles' winning story will be published in 2025. 

Kobi Simpson

Kobi Ashenden (formerly Kobi Simpson) is a young father, gardener, writer, and wannabe-luddite currently residing in Boorloo/Perth. He was born in South Australia, and since then has lived in three states, numerous houses and occasionally a car. His Nunga heritage, family, passion for strangeness, and ADHD hyper fixations compel him to write stories he hopes live and breathe. He will be published in several upcoming anthologies and was a recent mentee of the Writing Change, Writing Inclusion program under Centre for Stories. 

Kobi's winning story will be published in 2025. 

Emily new headshot

EmiIy Tsokos Purtill is a Western Australian writer and former lawyer of Greek heritage. Her home is Boorloo/Perth and she has also lived in the UK, Vancouver, Paris and New York. Emily's debut novel Matia, following four generations of Greek-Australian women across continents and time, is forthcoming from UWA Publishing in October 2024. She currently writes and curates the online literary subscription Kaló Taxídi.

Emily's winning essay will be published in 2025. 

2023 Winners

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Alex Cothren headshot

Alex Cothren holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Flinders University. He is a winner of the Carmel Bird, William van Dyke and Peter Carey Awards for short fiction, and he has writing published in Meanjin, Island, Overland, Griffith Review, Ruminate and Australian Book Review. His unpublished short story collection, Let's Talk Trojan Bee, was shortlisted for the 2021 Speculate Prize.

Read Alex's winning story here.

Scott Limbrick Photo (Leah Jing McIntosh) 3

Scott Limbrick is a writer based in Naarm (Melbourne). His fiction has appeared in Electric LiteratureDebris MagazineWesterlyThe Furphy AnthologyThe Suburban ReviewGoing Down SwingingKill Your Darlings' New Australian Fiction and elsewhere. His collection-in-progress was shortlisted for the Richell Prize for Emerging Writers.

Read Scott's winning story here.

Brooke Maddison

Brooke Maddison is a writer and editor working on unceded Turrbal and Yuggera land. She has a Masters of Writing, Editing and Publishing from The University of Queensland, and is the founder and co-editor of Crackle, the university’s anthology of creative writing. Her writing has been published in Kill Your DarlingsAntithesisMascara Literary ReviewVerity La, the Spineless Wonders Queer as Fiction Anthology, and ACE III: Arresting Contemporary Stories by Emerging Writers, among others. She has been awarded a Wheeler Centre Next Chapter Fellowship, a UQP mentorship, a Curtis Brown Creative HW Fisher scholarship and was highly commended for the 2023 Peter Blazey Fellowship.

Read Brooke's winning essay here.

WINDON, Beau 3

Beau Windon is a neurodivergent author of Wiradjuri heritage based in Naarm. Unafraid of any writing form, he duels with them all. His creative non-fiction work has seen him awarded a 2021 Grace Marion Wilson Writeability Fellowship and a Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Award for self-told stories. Find him at www.beauwindon.com

Read Beau's winning essay here.

 

2022 Winners

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BARHAM, Stephanie

Stephanie Barham is a graduate of Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT (2018). She has been published in Overland and The Sleepers Almanac, and was shortlisted for The Australian/Vogel's Literary Award in 2015. 

Read Stephanie's winning story here.

MYERS, Melanie (credit Glenn Hunt)

Melanie Myers won the Queensland Literary Awards Glendower Award for an Emerging Writer in 2018. Her winning manuscript was published as Meet Me at Lennon’s (UQP), which was shortlisted for the 2020 Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance and The Courier-Mail People’s Choice Award. Her short stories and non-fiction have appeared in Kill Your DarlingsOverlandArena MagazineTEXT and Hecate, among many others.

Read Melanie's winning story here.

O'GRADY, Emily

Emily O’Grady is a writer from Brisbane. Her first novel, The Yellow House won the 2018 Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award, and in 2019 she was awarded a Queensland Writers Fellowship. Her second novel will be published by Allen & Unwin in 2023.

Read Emily's winning story here.

PHILP, Alex 3

Alex Philp is a writer of both screenplays and prose. Working with her frequent collaborator, Luisa Martiri, she wrote the short films Milk (2018) and Pools (2020). Pools premiered at Flickerfest (2021) and was also an official selection for Show Me Shorts Film Festival New Zealand and CinefestOZ. Her short fiction has been published in Overland, Westerly, Voiceworks and in the Review of Australian Fiction. She won the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction in 2017. 

Read Alex's winning story here.

SHIROKAWA, Isa 5

Isa Shirokawa is a writer of Asian and European descent. She has a background in law and in journalism for an international news organisation and is currently at work on her first novel.

Read Isa's winning story here.

2021 Winners

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FRY, Declan 4

Declan Fry is a writer, poet, critic and essayist. Born on Wongatha country in Kalgoorlie, he has written for The GuardianSaturday Paper, Overland, Australian Book ReviewMeanjinLiminalSydney Review of BooksCorditeKill Your Darlings and Westerly, among others. His essay ‘Justice for Elijah or a Spiritual Dialogue with Ziggy Ramo, Dancing’ received the 2021 Peter Blazey Fellowship and he has been shortlisted for the Judith Wright Poetry Prize. 

Read Declan's winning story here.

GIBBS, Alison 2

Alison Gibbs runs her own writing consultancy producing copy for United Nations agencies and the not-for-profit sector. Her short stories have been published and broadcast in Australia and the UK, and have received numerous shortlistings and awards. Her debut novel Repentance was published by Scribe in January 2021. 

Read Alison's winning story here.

KHURANA, Vijay

Vijay Khurana spent several years as a radio presenter and journalist before leaving broadcasting to focus on writing. His stories have been shortlisted for the Bristol Short Story Prize (2021), the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize (2019–20) and the I’ll Show You Mine sex-writing prize (2019), among others. His writing is published or forthcoming in NOONThe Lifted Brow and Seizure

Read Vijay's winning story here.

ROFF, Andrew (portrait) 2

Andrew Roff was the winner of the 2020 Peter Carey Short Story Award. His short fiction has appeared widely, and his first collection will be published in 2022 by Wakefield Press. 

Read Andrew's winning story here.