Melbourne is home to one of Australia’s most valuable literary awards, the Melbourne Prize for Literature. Others include the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, given in five categories (fiction, non-fiction, drama, poetry, young adult), the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, the biennial Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing and the Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Awards, also given for six categories (short story, poetry, novella, graphic short story, narrative non-fiction and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander life writing).

Melbourne-based organisations bestow a great many awards across a variety of literary niches, such as the Ned Kelly Awards, honouring the best Australian crime writing, the Sisters in Crime Davitt Award for best female crime writer, the Australian Book Review Calibre Prize for essay writing, the Dromkeen Medal is awarded by the State Library of Victoria to a person who has made a significant contribution to children’s literature, the Hachette Australia Prize for writers under 25 at Express Media, the thirty-year-running Alan Marshall Short Story Award and the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction.

The Stella Prize is a major literary award celebrating Australian women’s writing, and an organisation that champions cultural change. The Stella Prize runs events at bookshops, festivals and universities around Australia. They also compile the annual Stella Count, tracking the number of books by men and women reviewed in some of Australia’s major newspapers and literary magazines. Each year, The Stella Prize awards one author with a $50,000 prize. Both nonfiction and fiction books by women writers are eligible for entry. This is an annual reward.

For these, and many more, check Writers Victoria for updates and submission details.