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Daisy Utemorrah Award

 

The Daisy Utemorrah Award is NOW OPEN. 

 

The Daisy Utemorrah Award is for an unpublished manuscript of junior or YA fiction by a First Nations author. The 2025 Daisy Utemorrah Award is open to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people currently living in Australia.

The winner of the award receives $15,000 and a publishing contract with Magabala Books. 

 

Eligibility
Applicants must be:
  • An Aboriginal person and/or Torres Strait Islander person;
  • Living in Australia;
  • Over 18 years of age or provide consent from a parent or guardian to enter;
  • Not have previously won the Daisy Utemorrah Award;
  • Co-authored manuscripts are eligible, but authors must comply with Magabala’s publishing eligibility criteria.
The submitted manuscript must be:
  • An original work;
  • Manuscripts must be within the category of Junior or Young Adult fiction, that is: fictional works specifically aimed at readers aged between 8 – 18 (Children's picture books are ineligible);
  • Unpublished – this means that the manuscript cannot have been previously published, or self-published, with an ISBN in print or electronic form (publication of up to 10 per cent of the manuscript will be accepted);
  • The manuscript must not be currently entered in other writing competitions, or under submission to a publisher, or subject to contractual negotiations;
  • Eligible manuscripts may be in English, Aboriginal English, an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander language, or a combination of these, including a bilingual text.

 

Entries Close 16th April.

Winner will be announced at the 2025 Western Australia Premier’s Book Awards. 

 

Complete the entry form and email with your manuscript as a Word document or PDF attachment to Magabala Books at projects@magabala.com 



Your email subject line should read: Daisy Utemorrah Award entry.
A copy of your confirmation of identity must also be attached to the email.

The Daisy Utemorrah Award is proudly presented as part of the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards. Launched in 2018, this national award recognises excellence in junior and YA fiction and seeks to grow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writing for young readers.

‘Our young people need stories... They need stories that speak of how to get through tough times, and stories that celebrate who they are and who they can be. The Daisy Utemorrah Award is an incredible opportunity for a First Nations voice to speak, and the story they will tell will help to nurture the next generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storytellers.’ – Ambelin Kwaymullina, Daisy Utemorrah Award judge.

Magabala Books acknowledges the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund and the WA State Government for their generous support of this award.

Check out the previous Award Winners here. 

Daisy Utemorrah

 

The award is named in honour of author and poet Daisy Utemorrah, who was an elder of the Wunambal people from the Mitchell Plateau area in the far north Kimberley and one of the founding Elders of Magabala Books. Born in 1922 at Kunmunya Mission, Daisy was an award-winning poet, author, community leader and passionate educator. Daisy’s poetry collection Do Not Go Around the Edges (illus by Pat Torres), published by Magabala Books in 1991, was shortlisted for the 1991 CBCA Book of the Year for Younger Readers, and won the 1992 Australian Multicultural Children’s Book Award.

Magabala is grateful to Daisy Utemorrah’s family who have given permission for us to honour her memory with this award.



The Daisy Utemorrah Award is generously supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund and the State Government of Western Australia.