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Judges – 2025 Young Writers Award

In 2025, the Young Writers Award judges chose Sam Quyên Huỳnh as this year's winner, and Tali Lum Wan, Hasara Ekanayake and Iris Monod as runners-up. 

Congratulations to these brilliant young Queensland writers! 

The judging panel

Entries to the Young Writers Award are assessed by an independent panel of judges. We thank this year's judges for their time and expertise.  

 

Siang Lu (Chair)

Siang Lu is the Miles Franklin Award-winning author of Ghost Cities and ABIA-winning author of The Whitewash. He is the co-creator of The Beige Index and the creator of #sillybookstagram. Ghost Cities has been shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal, the Russell Prize for Humour Writing, the VPLA John Clarke Humour Award, the Readings New Australian Fiction Prize and the University of Queensland Fiction Book Award and The Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year at the Queensland Literary Awards. Siang is based in Brisbane, Australia, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.   

Photo of the author Siang Lu. He is onstage with a microphone, wearing a blue shirt and smiling.

Jarad Bruinstroop

Jarad Bruinstroop’s debut poetry collection, Reliefs (UQP, 2023) won the Wesley Michel Wright Prize, the Five Islands Poetry Prize, the Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize, and was shortlisted for the Judith Wright Calanthe Award. He is the recipient of the Val Vallis Award, the Queensland Writers Fellowship, and the Fryer Library Creative Writing Fellowship. His work has appeared in The Best of Australian Poems, Meanjin, Overland, HEAT, Island, Westerly and elsewhere. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from QUT where he now teaches. 

A black and white photo of Jarad Bruinstroop who is wearing a jumper and cap against a background of trees

Allanah Hunt

Dr Allanah Hunt is passionate about all things writing. Her interests are in social justice, mental health, Blak feminism, fan fiction, First Nations storytelling and women's health (particularly her illness of endometriosis). She has edited many First Nations novels, and published short stories in places like Overland, Griffith Review and The Conversation. She has won several awards, including the inaugural Boundless mentorship, a Next Chapter fellowship, and received the Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award for her body of work so far. She currently works as a Lecturer and Researcher at the University of Queensland, and her first novel is due to come out in 2026, with Text Publishing. 

 

Photo of author Allanah Hunt. She has long dark hair and is wearing a black top.
The judging process
  • State Library staff check entries for eligibility.
  • Entries are provided to the judging panel. The panel will deliberate remotely. 
  • This competition is judged anonymously.   
  • Judges will award first prize to the short story that possesses the highest literary merit. 
  • The judges may award one winner and up to three runners up, in order of merit. The panel may also note up to five highly commended entries.
  • Results will be published on the State Library website and social media channels.