Literally Literary Legends

Since 1984, the NT Literary Awards have celebrated the unpublished works of Territorians, and last month, the 2024 winners were revealed at a special awards ceremony at the NT Library.

^{By Tierney White}

OVER 240 SUBMISSIONS were submitted across the Territory this year with 22 works shortlisted across seven categories – theatre, short story, flash fiction, essay, creative non-fiction, youth and poetry.

Sarah Rueben took out the Brown’s Mart Theatre Award for her work, She Sits, and says it’s a huge honour to receive recognition for her work.

“It’s a story about someone’s relationship to their grandma, and what it means to be connected or rooted to family history, yet trying to forge their own path. I think, as someone who moved to the Northern Territory away from a lot of their own community, it felt symbolic of that journey,” she says. 

“My first feeling was to feel very proud of being a part of an amazing writer’s community in the NT, and to be able to be there to celebrate the entirety of the community and how inspiring and talented the writers of the NT are. To be a small cog in that greater machine felt really heartwarming.”

In addition to some well-deserved bragging rights, the winners shared in a prize pool of $5,700, and each received an NT Writers’ Centre membership and a double pass to select shows in Brown's Mart's 2025 performance program. Not a bad haul.

Keen to enter the awards next year? Put pen to paper and give it a crack!

2024 WINNERS

Brown’s Mart Theatre Award 
Sarah Rueben – She Sits

Charles Darwin University Creative Non-Fiction Award 
Dave Clark – Remember

Charles Darwin University Essay Award 
Steve Hawkins - The Compulsory Teaching in English for the First Four Hours of Each School Day policy (2008, NT): an evaluation

Flash Fiction Award
Lee Frank - The Earth Flickering Beneath Our Mobility Devices

Kath Manzie Youth Award
Gabriella Francis - Bittersweet Seventeen

NT Writers’ Centre Poetry Award
Fiona Dorrell - Precious Thing

Zip Print Short Story Award
Barbara Eather - The Madness of Being Loved

INFO lant.nt.gov.au

^{Thumbnail & inset: 2024 NTLA winners L-R: Gabriella Francis, Barbara Eather, Steve Hawkins & Sarah Rueben}