Judith Rodriguez Prize 2021 Announcement!
2021 Judith Rodriguez Prize
The Judith Rodriguez Prize is an annual prize awarded to an outstanding piece of work in fiction/poetry/creative nonfiction/scriptwriting submitted in a third-year coded unit in trimester 1 or 2 in the Bachelor of Creative Writing. Work is nominated for the long list by relevant third-year staff and then judged by two members of the Professional and Creative Writing discipline area.
Long list
Eli Alonaritis, Shut the duck up.
Rachel Baxter, Woman with refined nose
Sarah Burden, Pamela
Rebekah Cotterill, Excerpt from The Heart of the Empress, Chapter One
Darcie Davey, You’re a bit much
Paige Loone, Begin with the little things
Kane Mathews, Ripple
Alicia Miller, Free climbing
Madison Pawle, Movements toward an amorphous w[hole]
Diva Poole, Inclusions
Carly Rawson, 38.
you burn me
Paris Thomson, Tilly’s recipe for success
Highly commended
- Rachel Baxter, Woman with refined nose
- Madison Pawle, Movements toward an amorphous w[hole]
- Paige Loone, Begin with the little things
The winner
Carly Rawson, ’38.
you burn me’
Praise from the judges
The judges would like to acknowledge each nominated writer on their achievement, noting the overall quality and striking scope of the longlisted works, which comprise a range of genres and forms, from manuscripts for children and young adult readers, to literary and hybrid works. It was an honour to consider each submission, and the longlist as a whole, and the judges congratulate all the authors on the remarkable works they have produced.
A unanimous winner, 38./ you burn me, by Carly Rawson, is intriguing and genuine, holding the reader’s interest throughout. Rawson’s prose is both rich and restrained, wry and tender. Its vivid metaphors express poignant insights, exemplified in moments such as: ‘When the words spray out my mouth like water from a cracked hose and I’m left standing in a puddle of myself as they pretend to check on their child, stepping away to keep their feet from getting wet.’ The work’s structure layers the narrator’s experiences compellingly, resulting in writing that links individual experience and universal resonances with originality and clear-eyed integrity.
Introducing this year’s winner
Carly Rawson is a Naarm writer who now lives on unceded Wadawarrung country.
Her writing has been published in Chart Collective, The Big Issue, ACE II – Arresting, Contemporary Stories from Emerging Writers and Verandah. In April a piece of her writing will be published by Black Inc Books in Growing Up in Country Australia.