
Congratulations to the winners!
Thank you for joining us online for the 2020 Queensland Literary Awards announcement. You can re-watch the ceremony at anytime.
Queensland Premier's Award for a work of State Significance
$25,000
Heartland: How Rugby League Explains Queensland by Joe Gorman (UQP)
The University of Queensland Fiction Book Award
$15,000
Stone Sky Gold Mountain by Mirandi Riwoe (UQP)
The University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award
$15,000
Olive Cotton: A Life in Photography by Helen Ennis (HarperCollins)
Griffith University Young Adult Book Award
$15,000
Ghost Bird by Lisa Fuller (UQP)
Griffith University Children’s Book Award
$15,000
As Fast As I Can by Penny Tangey (UQP)
University of Southern Queensland Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection
$15,000
Lucky Ticket by Joey Bui (Text Publishing)
Judith Wright Calanthe Award for a Poetry Collection
$15,000
Heide by Pi.O (Giramondo Publishing)
Queensland Writers Fellowships
$19,500
- Sara El Sayed, 'The Blind Pussy Cat'
- Anna Jacobson, 'Anxious in a Sweet Store'
- Amanda Niehaus, 'Relativity'
David Unaipon Award for an Emerging Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Writer
$15,000
'The Space Between the Paperbark' by Jazz Money
Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer
$15,000
'If You're Happy' by Fiona Robertson
Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Awards
$12,500
- Zenobia Frost
- Yen-Rong Wong
The Courier-Mail People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award
$10,000
A Lifetime of Impossible Days by Tabitha Bird (Penguin Random House)
Stay up-to-date
Follow the Queensland Literary Awards on Twitter and Facebook for updates about the awards in 2021, or contact us via email at qla@slq.qld.gov.au.
2020 trophy design
This year’s 2020 trophies were created by glass artists Joanna Bone and Aaron Micallef from their Brisbane studio. Inspired by the natural environment, form, surface and movement of light, their shared and complementary aesthetic approaches feed a synergistic cycle of inspiration, creating work that lures the viewer into its depths.


Celebrate the success of the Queensland Writers Fellowship recipients.




Congratulations to the 2018 Queensland Literary Award winners and finalists!
Contact us
To contact State Library about the Queensland Literary Awards, please email qla@slq.qld.gov.au.
Principal benefactors
The Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer is supported by Jenny Summerson through the Queensland Library Foundation.
A Queensland Writers Fellowship is supported by Susan Hocking and Ian Mackie, and their family, of the Hocking Mackie Fund at APS Foundation.