the 2022 rachel funari prize for fiction: the shortlist

The Lip team is delighted to announce The Shortlist of the 2022 Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction.

Smoke – Susanna Freymark
Sanjida Learns to Drive – Zarin Nuzhat
Snake – Vicky Daddo
The Reliquary – Claire Alcock
Contrapuntal – Julia Prendergast
Just Us – Ruth Niemiec
Aftermath – Liz Walkenhorst
The Cleaner – Zeynab Gamieldien
Crushed Grass – Elle Parkinson
Grandad Keeps His Heart in the Shed – Elaine Mead
In the Wake of Tokyo – Louise Burlinson

Thank you to everyone who sent us their stories this year. We extend our congratulations to all shortlisted writers and look forward to announcing the winners on Monday 20th June as part of the Emerging Writers’ Festival’s ‘Amazing Babes’ event. (For more information about the event, please click here.)

The 2022 Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction is judged by Lip‘s team as well as our panel of esteemed judges.

Julie Koh is the author of Capital Misfits and Portable Curiosities. She was named a 2017 Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist. Her short stories have been published widely, including in the Best Australian Stories and Best Australian Comedy Writing. She has written two radio plays for ABC Radio National and the libretto for the satirical opera Chop Chef. Julie has judged several literary prizes including the 2018 Stella Prize.

Melissa Manning is a Melbourne-based author and lawyer. Her debut interlinked story collection, Smokehouse, won the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction, and was shortlisted for the USQ Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection.

Sonia Orchard is an author, teacher, mentor and speaker from Victoria’s Macedon Ranges. She is the author of three books: a memoir, Something More Wonderful; and two novels, The Virtuoso, which won the Indie Award for Best Debut Fiction in 2009, and Into the Fire. Her fourth book, a non-fiction, The Female of the Species, will be published in early 2023. She is also the festival director of the Mountain Writers Festival, a new writers festival in regional Victoria, which explores Place Story and Nature.

This year’s prize is supported by Aniko Press, UQP, Penguin Random House Australia, Ultimo Press, Fremantle Press, NewSouth Publishing, Scribe Publications, Queensland Writers Centre, Pan Macmillan Australia, PENinsula Literary Journal and the Emerging Writers’ Festival.

Background Information
This year marks ten years of the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction. Writers were invited to submit previously unpublished and unperformed fiction up to 2000 words that engaged with the theme ‘aftermath’. The competition was open to all women and non-binary writers.

This prize is held in honour of Lip’s late founding editor, Rachel Funari, in recognition of her contribution to the arts.