The Pearl Prize 2025
Image: by 'POLO' Osborne and Fawkner Creative Team
The Pearl Prize is presented with Osborne and Fawkner Publishing and supported by Midsumma Festival
A writing award where Queer writers have a platform of self expression through the writing landscape and into publication. Fifteen finalists have been selected and published in The Pearl Prize 2025. The award will proudly be announced at The Victorian Pride Centre. A queer bloom in the Australian writing landscape. The Pearl Prize is unique to Midsumma Festival as it is the first of its kind in a queer arts and culture festival in Australia.
After the Award Presentation the publication featuring the works from the fifteen finalists will be available to purchase and to be signed by these talents at Melbourne's incredible bookstore Hares and Hyenas at The Victorian Pride Centre.
The Pearl Prize 2025 Finalists
Jay Arnold
Jay Arnold was raised in Far North Queensland. After university, they lived and wrote variously in Melbourne, Europe and the United Kingdom – however they only found their voice as an author when they began telling the story of their hometown. The resulting work, Naked as Eve, won the Bristol Short Story Prize in 2012. Their short fiction, Skeleton Creek, has since been included in the 2021 Faber Anthology. They are the author of five plays and their 2022 work, Blood Makes Noise, was the subject of the documentary, The Kids Play, by director Libby Chow. In 2024, Jay received a ‘highly commended’ from the Olga Masters Short Story Prize for their story, Flooding the Moment. They’re currently finishing a full-length, gothic-literary novel set in the Far North. An unapologetic misanthrope, Jay prefers the company of dogs to humans. Occasionally, an old friend will lure them out of the house with the promise of beer and dancing.
Jeanette Barry
A transwoman and career educator, Jeanette (she/her) has turned her passion for good storytelling into a means of advocating for our community. Her story “An Inconsistent Line” which explores the struggles of trans youth was longlisted in the 2024 Mansfield readers and writers short story competition. Raised in a middle-class inner-city family in Melbourne she often struggled with a single sex schooling environment but ultimately managed to achieve her dreams of attending Melbourne University and graduating with a Masters in Secondary Teaching. Since then, Jeanette has taught in some of the toughest public schools across Melbourne and Geelong with a proud history in supporting student wellbeing and literacy.
Since coming out in her 30s Jeanette has learned to draw heavily on her ongoing challenges and experiences to advocate for the wider trans community and explore different ideas in her writing. She often demonstrates an ability to blend a character driven literary style with more approachable genres of writing so that everyone can experience enjoyment while being encouraged to reflect on a range of social issues. This means prioritising the development of complex characters that are often plagued with realistic flaws like self-doubt, greed and social isolation as they struggle with elements of their own identity.
Craig Brown
Craig Brown first fell in love with writing when he joined the Boy Scouts and found out he couldn’t tie knots, so decided to write a brief and biased history of the British monarchy. He received a writing badge, which they had to send away for. His need for public affirmation has continued from that time.
Since then, he’s had articles published in publications as diverse as Cinema Papers, the Green Guide and Papua New Guinea’s The National. His article on coming out as a gay man with a church background was published in the UK’s Metro. He was commissioned to co-author two non-fiction books, one for a religious organisation (The Church From the Paddock) and Difference, which tells the story of the philanthropic organisation, donkey wheel. A short story, The Waves Give and the Waves Take, was also published in an anthology.
Craig realised that he was gay in mid-2019, and since then has been working hard to better understand himself and meet Troye Sivan, Timothee Chalamet or Dan Levy. He works in international aid and development, has his own writing and editing business and continues to write, with a bunch of projects that he is excited about but suspects he’s editing them to death. Since mid-2023, he has been privileged to be a newsreader on JOY 94.9, where he has hosted The Open Table since July 2024. A proud father of three wonderful grown children, an employee of a rescue cat, Pablo, Craig enjoys meeting new people, socialising with close friends, having meaningful conversations, exploring the inner north, staying out too late and telling anyone who’ll listen that we’re living in a golden age of television.
Linnea Burdon-Smith
Linnea Burdon-Smith is a Naarm/Melbourne based writer. They write fiction and non-fiction that focuses on social justice themes. They have been an editor for the demos journal and have been published in the Bossy magazine. They currently work in the legal assistance sector and contribute to research and policy papers that amplify the voices of victims/survivors of family violence.
Flick
Flick is a creative, producer, and devout homebody. They’re best known for writing the staged lesbian sci-fi series SLUNTIK™. They have a Master of Theatre (Dramaturgy) from the Victorian College of the Arts, and their work has been published with humana obscura, CREATurE Magazine, and YDAS. Flick placed second in the 2023 Marj Wilke Short Story Prize, and was highly commended for a 2023 Writeabilty Fellowship with Writers Victoria. They were a member of the Theatre Works SheWrites program in 2022-23, and a participant in the Australia Plays Transform & La Mama 2024 Pathways Writing Intensive Program.
Flick has worked on projects and programs with La Mama, Australian Plays Transform, Darebin Arts, Australia Theatre for Young People, Nightingale Content, The People, Arts Access Victoria, Rawcus, The Substation, Antipodes Theatre Company, Unfunded Empathy, Opera Express, Theatre Works, Dollhouse Collective, Blacktown Arts, Queerspace Arts and more.
They are a panellist for the Green Room Awards Association and a proud member of the MEAA. Flick is based in Naarm and can be found at https://www.flickflickcity.net/
Julien Furnace
Julien Furnace (any pronouns) was born and raised in France and moved to Melbourne 10 years ago. They're Australian now. After a few years having a stint at stand-up comedy, which ended with the Covid pandemic, they decided to try their luck at storytelling. After being shortlisted for Midsumma’s Pearl Prize last year and being highly commended for the Outstanding Short Story competition this year, they are happy to present Dateshifter And The Still Life, which is part of a bigger project that has been in the works for a while. Julien is attracted to speculative fiction, especially optimistic science-fiction, and is interested in how technological progress and scientific discoveries can impact gender, sexuality, identity and raison d'être at a personal or social level. They believe that in these very transformative times for humankind, it is important that writers ask themselves these questions so they can build new utopias.
Wen Gibsen
Words have helped me make sense of my world and it is through writing that I have understood my unique place on the gender spectrum. I began writing at a teenager but it wasn’t until 1990 that I consciously tried to capture my feelings in a written form. I wrote a series of poems. The poems sat there for the next thirty years. 1n 2022, I found the words between the poems. They poured out in a flood of pages and I published my first book Stammering Against Truth in October 2024. In the book, I explore my sexuality and gender, and identity as a lone twin.
The gender I choose sets me free. My gender is not innate, not inborn and not forced on me. I create it and make it mine. My sense of myself refuses the extremes of male and female. I fly free of the binary and move in between.
One on my poems, Eric, was runner-up in the Yorkshire Open Poetry Competition, in 1993. Other poems were published as part of anthologies – New Beginnings (1993), Reflections (1994) – and during the ‘Zero Tolerance of Violence against Women’ Exhibition run by Renfrewshire Council, Scotland (1995). Joan Woodward published a version of my twin story in The Lone Twin, 1998. The story, The Balloon Family, was short-listed at The Central Coast Writers Festival and published in the anthology Central Coast Kaleidoscope (2001). Some poems were published in the Central Coast Poet’s Inc. Anthologies (2002 and 2008). My short story, Speaking through Dysfluency was published in November 2024 in the Seniors’ Stories Volume 10 (NSW Seniors Card Program initiative)
Judith Huang
Judith Huang is a Singaporean Australian author, poet, science fiction translator, serial-arts collective-founder and multimedia artist.
Her first novel, Sofia and the Utopia Machine, was shortlisted for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize 2017 and Singapore Book Awards 2019.
Judith was a Hot Desk Fellow at the Centre for Stories in 2024 and a recipient of a Perth Poetry Festival 2024 micro-residency. She has work published in Prairie Schooner, Asia Literary Review, The South China Morning Post, The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, QLRS, Portside Review, Stylus, Mascara Review, QLRS, Cha, Loreli, Ceriph, LONTAR, Spittoon Magazine, Clockwise Cat, and Asymptote, as well as various anthologies. She was the poetry editor of the anthology Perks of Being Dumped (Marshall Cavendish, 2024).
As an artist, she was commissioned to make the VR artwork Marcus and the Shadow for the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) in 2022.
As a science fiction translator, she was awarded the inaugural Rosetta Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy translation in 2021, and her work has appeared in Clarkesworld, Future SF, Asymptote and Tor anthology The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories (Tor, 2022).
She founded YAWP!, the longest-running performance poetry competition in Singapore, in 2004, was a co-founder of Spittoon Collective in China, which is now in over 14 cities, and is the co founder of Chilli Jam Open Mic in Perth.
Judith graduated from Harvard University with an A.B. in English and taught creative and academic writing at Yale-NUS College.
She is an avid knitter and a bunny enthusiast.
Jack Lewis-Edney
Jack Lewis-Edney is a writer who grew up in the south of England, where he completed his BA with Honours in English Language. Since moving to Australia for a new adventure, he has completed a course with the Australian Writers Centre, which re-ignited his passion for storytelling. His first piece, some short prose about the afterlife, was published when he was just seven years old.
His favourite authors are Gabrielle Zevin, Stephen King and any other who can help you get lost in a brand-new world. He enjoys writing that looks at everyday situations from a different angle and dissecting the human experience in unusual ways.
When not tapping away on his keyboard, Jack can be found playing video games, crocheting, or playing fetch with his fluffy Tibetan Spaniel.
Tamsin Lillywhite
Tamsin Lillywhite (she/her) is a bisexual writer and Heritage Planner currently living on Wiradyuri Country, NSW. Under the pen name Tamsin Lillywhite, she has authored On Earth, Where There Are No Angels which is part one of a queer urban fantasy duology. The story follows three main protagonists who have to work out what angels appearing will mean for their identities. It is largely set in, and inspired by, Canberra, the city where Tamsin obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing. Her experience of living in the beautiful garden city built on top of unceded Ngunnawal Country motivated her to pursue further education in a Bachelor of Planning.
In pursuit of a career in local government, Tamsin did not abandon her creative tendencies. In between studying Planning at Macquarie University, she wrote On Earth…, its second part The Absence of June which has yet to be published, and had speculative fiction short stories published in three issues of the university's student publication, 'Grapeshot'. As Senior Heritage Planner at Bathurst Regional Council, she writes signage content promoting the heritage of marginalised people in the region.
In her spare time, she teaches creative writing to kids, participates in the Central West Writer’s Group and edits books for friends, including two instalments of the Flux Catastrophe series by bisexual author Jonathan Weiss. She also founded Queer Cinema Country Club to bring together queer people in Bathurst who want to talk all things cinema.
Tamsin is currently seeking to have the first part of her duology republished.
Stephanie Mitchell
Stephanie Mitchell began writing at a young age with a dream to one day be published. Most of those words never ventured beyond her own eyes… until recently. Stephanie creates character-driven works and always strives for a (mildly realistic) happy ending. She tries to always keep in mind that though the book ends, the characters’ journeys continue beyond the page. Stephanie feels blessed to have the support of a loving partner whose patience, kindness, and persisting good humour brings light to all of her days. And a gorgeous gremlin cat who has spent many hours dozing to the sound of taps on a keyboard. After walking all over the laptop first, of course. Stephanie is grateful for the chance to share a small part of her world with others and hopes to continue her writing journey
Niko Satria
Niko Satria (He/Him) is an emerging writer and data professional living in Wangal Country, Western Sydney. He was born in Indonesia. After completing his study and briefly working in the United States, he decided to relocate to Australia. Niko enjoys experiencing the world differently through travel and history. His short story “Return to Surabaya” was selected as a finalist and published in The Pearl Prize 2024. Niko is currently working on a collection of short stories. When he is not traveling, reading, or writing, Niko can be found chasing down unusual vintage wristwatches online.
Orlando Silver
Orlando Silver (he/ they) is a trans queer writer living and working on Darug and Gundungurra lands. He is a playwright, fiction writer and poet. Orlando often focuses on the intersections of desire, transgender identities and embodiment. He has two self published books on trans masc desire, "Soft Fruit" and "Relent". He is the editor of "I Write the Body", an international anthology of queer and trans writers published by Kith Books. His next anthology, "Take it Outside" is due to be released February 2025 under his newly launched small press, Incision Press. Orlando also teaches the LGBTIQA+ writing program “Illuminated Ink” for Westwords, and was most recently a Guest Curator of the Enqueer Writers Festival.
Phil Soliman
Phil Soliman is a writer, filmmaker, photographer, artist, and DJ, born and raised on Darug land (Western Sydney) and currently based in Naarm (Melbourne). With a passion for storytelling across all forms of creative expression that spans much of his life, Phil's work reflects his ongoing fascination with the infinite and often wildly divergent ways we perceive reality. Drawing from his migrant background and experience of neurodiversity, Phil’s work is not just a means of artistic expression, but a way of navigating the complex and ever-changing world around him.
Barry Lee Thompson
Barry Lee Thompson (he/him) is the author of Broken Rules and Other Stories, published by Transit Lounge and supported by Creative Victoria and a fellowship from Varuna, the National Writers’ House. He has won competitions including the Overland Victoria University Short Story Prize and the inaugural City of Melbourne Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Awards. His work has been shortlisted and highly commended in events including the Queensland Literary Awards, The Age Short Story Award, and the Bridport Prize. He enjoys membership of two writing groups. Elwood Writers, which he co-founded in 2007, regularly contributes material to Vision Australia Radio’s weekly literary program Cover to Cover. Barry is currently developing a novel exploring the landscapes of the night – the project received early support from the Victorian Government’s Sustaining Creative Workers Initiative.
Event & ticketing details
Book ticketsAccessibility
Dates & Times
WHEN | Sat 26 Jan 2pm |
DURATION | 1hr |
Tickets
FULL | $12.00 |
CONC | $10.00 |
COMPANION | FREE - please email [email protected] to arrange |
EARLYBIRD | 15% discount at checkout on full price tickets until 11pm 17 Dec 2024 |
Location
Victorian Pride Centre - The Forum
79-81 Fitzroy St, St Kilda
Get directionsTram
3a, 16, 96 to stop 133 (Canterbury Rd/Fitzroy St) | tram 12 to stop 143 (Fitzroy St/Park St)Event notes
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