Welcome to The Furphy Literary Award, Australia’s celebrated short story competition. We’d love to read your story.
PLEASE NOTE:
All entries are handled through Submittable. Entry links will forward you to the Submittable website.
OPEN SHORT STORY COMPETITION
Entries open 1st February 2025
- $15,000 first prize
- Short story <5000 words
- Australia wide, 18+
JUNIOR AND YOUTH COMPETITION
Entries open 1st March 2025
- $1800 prize pool
- Short story and poetry categories
- GV and surrounds, under 18
Celebrating Australian Storytelling
About the Furphy Literary Award
Everyone can write at least one good story. That was the belief of J. F. Archibald, the editor and founder of the famous nineteenth-century weekly, The Bulletin, who invited his readers to become contributors. It was this encouragement that led Joseph Furphy, working in his brother’s foundry at Shepparton, to write his novel, Such is Life, using the pseudonym of ‘Tom Collins’. The book, full of stories derived from Joseph’s experience in the Riverina and told in a voice uniquely his own, is now acknowledged to be a classic of Australian literature.
In the spirit of Archibald and honouring the author of Such is Life, the Furphy Literary Award has been established to promote and extend the tradition of story telling, both factual and fictional, that is so much part of Australian life.
COMPETITION CLOSING
The Furphy Anthology
The Furphy Anthology features the sixteen short stories judged to be the best of the best in each year’s competition.
OPEN SHORT STORY COMPETITION
2024 Winners
- First Prize: Kathryn Lomer
- Second Prize: Jane Downing
- Third Prize: Paulette Gittins
About Joseph Furphy
Joseph Furphy, pseudonym Tom Collins, (born Sept. 26, 1843, Yering, near Yarra Glen, Victoria), Australian author whose novels combine an acute sense of local Australian life and colour with the eclectic philosophy and literary ideas of a self-taught workingman.
After marrying at 24 and suffering a series of droughts in Corop Northern Victoria, Joseph eventually established himself as a bullock driver based in Hay NSW. Alas after 5 years of this occupation drought and disease wiped out his bullock team and he subsequently returned to Shepparton where his brother offered him work in the foundry.
During this time Joseph toiled by night at his novel Such Is Life – most of which he wrote in his cottage behind the foundry in Welsford St. Such is Life was a collection of stories which reflected his time in the Riverina as a bullock driver. It originally appeared in the Bulletin in 1903 and has since been recognised as a significant piece of Australian Literature. Joseph moved to Fremantle in 1904 to be nearer his three children and died there in 1912.
For more information about Joseph Furphy visit www.josephfurphy.com.au
For more information about Joseph Furphy visit the Joseph Furphy website.
Open and Junior Sponsors
Open Sponsors
