The South Australian Literary Awards, until 2024 known as the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, comprise a group of biennially-granted literary awards established in 1986 by the Government of South Australia. Formerly announced during Adelaide Writers' Week in March, as part of the Adelaide Festival, from 2024 the awards are announced in a dedicated ceremony in October. The awards include national as well as state-based prizes, and offer three fellowships for South Australian writers. Several categories have been added to the original four.
The Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature were created by the Government of South Australia in 1986 and awarded during Writers' Week as part of the Adelaide Festival. [1] [2]
In 2020, the State Library of South Australia (SLSA) took over administration of the awards from Arts South Australia, and library director Geoff Strempel felt that the awards being presented in the late afternoon right at the end of a busy Writers' Week meant that they did not get the attention they deserved, especially compared with its interstate equivalents. [3] [4]
From 2024, the awards are renamed the South Australian Literary Awards [5] (a name in line with its interstate equivalents),and the awards ceremony takes place in the Mortlock Chamber of the SLSA towards the end of the year, away from the festival season. [3] The first of the rebranded awards takes place in October 2024. The shortlist was announced on 9 August 2024. [2]
The Premier's Award is the richest prize, worth A$25,000, and awarded for the best overall published work which has already won an award in one of the other categories. [6] [2] There is a total prize pool of A$167,500, which is distributed 11 categories, including the Premier's Award. There are six national and five South Australian categories. [3]
Other national awards, worth A$15,000(equivalent to $16,853 in 2022) each as of 2024, are the Fiction Award, Children's Literature Award, Young Adult Fiction Award, John Bray Poetry Award, and the Non-Fiction Award. South Australian awards and fellowships are the Jill Blewett Playwright's Award, the Arts South Australia/Wakefield Press Unpublished Manuscript Award, the Barbara Hanrahan Fellowship, the Max Fatchen Fellowship (in honour of Adelaide author and journalist Max Fatchen), and the Tangkanungku Pintyanthi Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Fellowship. [2] [1] Applications for each year's awards are open until mid-December of the preceding year. [3]
The awards are jointly funded by the SA government and the Libraries Board of South Australia. [3]
Winners: [1]
Winners: [1]
Winners: [1]
(Offered 2012– ) Winners: [1]
Honours John Jefferson Bray (1912–1995), Chief Justice of South Australia, academic and poet for his distinguished services to Australian poetry. [13] Winners: [1]
Winners: [1]
(Offered 1992− ) Winners: [1]
(Offered 1998– ) [1]
(Offered 1994– ) Winners: [1]
(Carclew Fellowship 1988–2012; [14] renamed Max Fatchen Fellowship from 2014, in honour of children's writer Max Fatchen, who died in 2012. [15] [6] ) Winners: [1]
(Offered 2014– ; full name Tangkanungku Pintyanthi Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Fellowship) Winners: [1]
(Offered 2004–2010)
Winners: [1]
Formerly the Faulding Award for Multimedia (offered 1998 to 2004).
Winners: [1]