the 2021 rachel funari prize for fiction: the winners

We are delighted to announce that the winner of the 2021 Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction is Keshe Chow for her story Lady Finger.

Keshe receives a $1000 cash prize, and a collection of books courtesy of our sponsors.

The 2021 Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction was judged by Lip’s editorial team as well as our panel of esteemed judges: Adalya Nash Hussein, Vivian Pham, and Nicola Redhouse.

Judges’ praise for Lady Finger:

“Here, the writer marries the migrant-returning-home experience with pure and unadulterated myth, making both forms new again. The structure of the story enfolds the reader and takes us home, unexpectedly, to the moon.”
– Vivian Pham

“[Lady Finger] achieved a wonderful balance of surprise, curious specificity and magic realist delight. It works beautifully at the level of plot and language, and showed careful attention to craft.” – Nicola Redhouse

Second place was awarded to Kerrin O’Sullivan for her story Mansion and third place was awarded to Tanya Vavilova for her story Here I Am.

Winning stories and author Q&As will be published on our website in the coming weeks.

About the 2021 Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction

This year marks the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction’s ninth year. Writers were invited to submit previously unpublished and unperformed fiction up to 2000 words that engaged with the theme ‘homecoming’. The competition was open to all women and non-binary writers. The prize is held in honour of Lip’s late founding editor, Rachel Funari, in recognition of her contribution to the arts.

This year’s prize is proudly supported by Affirm Press, Pan Macmillan Australia, Fremantle Press, Scribe Publications, Aniko Press, Debut Books, Express Media, NewSouth Publishing, Queensland Writers Centre, and the Emerging Writers’ Festival.

The sponsors and supporters of the 2021 Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction