2024 E.M. Fletcher Award – Winner Announced
14th October 2024
By Engagement Committee
The winner of the 2024 E.M. Fletcher Award was announced at a special event on Saturday 12 October.
And the winner is …… congratulations to Jo Callaghan, winner of the 2024 E.M. Fletcher Writing Award. Jo takes home a prize of $1,000 for her story Gorn, a compelling story based on the author’s own family in the 1940s, a period of great uncertainty for Australian families. In conferring the award judges Dr Adam Ouston, Therese Lynch and Beverley Richardson said, ‘With its wonderful turns of phrase, crisp (and cheeky) dialogue, and its locomotive pacing, ‘Gorn’ is a deserving winner of the EM Fletcher Award for 2024.’ As a Family History ACT member, Jo was also awarded the inaugural Rosemary McKenzie Award, for the story judged as the best entry by a FHACT member.
The runner up prize of $500, sponsored by the University of Tasmania Diploma of Family History was awarded to Kathleen Ridgwell for her story The Emerald Dove, inspired by the author’s great-great-great grandmother, Honora, who life was shaped by both trauma and resilience. The judges said, ‘With such powerful, elegant prose, and a command of the material, the judges felt they were in excellent hands here’. Congratulations Kathleen.
Two highly commended awards were given to Clare McGuiness for her story The Biography of a DNA Segment, an imaginative approach to family history writing, giving voice to a DNA segment and Derek Chan for his story Lotus Feet, dedicated to the author’s maternal grandparents, who overcame war and colonial barriers so their family could live safely in the West. Congratulations Clare and Derek.
All short-listed entries will be published in the December 2024 edition of The Ancestral Searcher. Copies of the journal can be pre-ordered at a cost of $5.00 plus postage or alternatively collected from the FHACT Library. Pre-order your copy today through the FHACT online bookstore.
2024 E.M. Fletcher Writing Competition – Short-List:
