THE ADA CAMBRIDGE PRIZE 2008
This is the Fourth year that the Williamstown Literary Festival has run the Ada Cambridge Prize for biographical short story writing. The prize was established to honour one of Williamstown's most famous daughters.

This years winners:

WINNING STORIES:

  • Patsy Rea Shame
  • Anneliese Rosenmayer Nightfall in Berlin

HIGHLY COMMENDED:

  • Lucia Nardo Seeing Clearly
  • Jean Thornton Mister Porter, Mister Trimble and a hat

COMMENDED:

  • Anna Brasier I Like These Shorts

SHORT LISTED:

  • Kate Amesbury A Pair of Shorts
  • Melissa Ferguson Best Friends Forever
  • Jonathan Griffiths The Old Man
  • Susan McGregor Searching for Mary Ann
  • Vivien Owens Behind Closed Doors

Ada Cambridge was a prolific Victorian novelist and diarist. A vicar's wife, she followed her husband around various postings in country Victoria , finishing up at Holy Trinity Anglican parish in Williamstown. In 1903 she wrote what is probably her best-remembered work, 'Thirty Years In Australia', a catalogue of her busy life as a vicar's wife and the many hardships she endured in the remote bush and a seaside town of a distant land. Her writings explored controversial subjects of the day such as unhappy marriages, bigamy, divorce, and euthanasia.

Known as "the doyenne of Australian writers" during the height of her popularity, by the 1940s she was largely forgotten and unfairly dismissed as "a frail clergyman's wife writing (genteel) romantic fiction of dubious value". Rather, Cambridge was a woman of great resourcefulness, zest and courage, who insisted that people should think for themselves.

The prize is named in honour of her achievement. The winner will be announced at the opening of the 2008 Williamstown Literary Festival, and the short list of stories will be available as a booklet.

 

 

THE SEAGULLS BOOKSHOP POETRY PRIZE
This year thanks to the generous sponsorship of Seagulls bookshop in Williamstown, we are also able to offer a prize for poetry. Forms are available here.

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