Meet the Judges
Introducing our Judges for the Ada Cambridge Writing Prizes
Ada Cambridge Biographical Prose Prize
Kay Souter
Chris Ringrose
Kay Souter was a lecturer in English for twenty-five years at RMIT and La Trobe universities, before moving into Teaching and Learning at Deakin and ACU universities for the last 5 years of her academic career. She retired to life as a farmer, working as a viticulturalist on her family’s small vineyard in northeast Victoria. On moving back to Melbourne, she has felt privileged to become a part of the vibrant literary life and wonderful seascapes of Williamstown.
Chris Ringrose received his BA in English Literature from The University of Cambridge and his MA and PhD from The University of Alberta, Canada. He has taught at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, The University of North Carolina and the University of Northampton in the UK and is currently Research Associate Professor of English at Monash University. Chris has published books and articles on modern fiction, literary theory and children’s literature; his own poetry and fiction have won awards in England, Canada and Australia. He edits the Journal of Postcolonial Writing (Routledge) and the book series Studies in World Literature and is a reviewer for Australian Poetry Journal. His latest poetry collection is Second Sight (ICoE Press, Melbourne 2026). Creative Lives: Interviews with 18 South Asian Writers was published by Ibidem/Columbia UP in 2021. His poetry website is www.cringrose.com
Ada Cambridge Poetry Prize Poetry Prize
Emilie Collyer
Angela Costi
Emilie Collyer lives and writes on unceded Wurundjeri Country where she is an award-winning writer across poetry and performance. She has two poetry collections published by Vagabond Press: Do you have anything less domestic? (winner Five Islands Prize) and As If I’m Really There (winner Wesley Michel Wright Prize). Her poetry has twice been recognised in Gwen Harwood and Newcastle poetry prizes and in the Judith Wright poetry prize. Her plays have been produced in Australia and internationally. Super (Red Stitch Theatre) won the 2026 Victoria Premier’s Literary Award for Drama. She is currently under commission with The Street Theatre (Canberra) and is Associate Artist at Geelong Arts Centre and Adjunct Industry Fellow at RMIT. Emilie works as a dramaturg, mentor and teacher and loves creating a space for people to explore and flourish with their writing.
Angela Costi has published a number of poetry collections including Honey & Salt (5Islands Press, shortlisted in the Mary Gilmore Prize 2008), An Embroidery of Old Maps and New (Spinifex, 2021) and The Heart of the Advocate (Liquid Amber Press, 2025). In 1995, she received a national travel award to study Ancient Greek drama in Greece. For three years, she was the writer-in-residence at the former Kensington Public Housing Estate on the Relocated arts project – commissioned by the City of Melbourne. In 2009, she travelled to Japan with support from the Australia Council for the Arts as part of an international collaboration involving her poetic text A Nest of Cinnamon. She won the University of Canberra’s Health Poetry Prize 2024, the KSP Poetry Prize 2022 and has been placed/listed in national and international poetry awards. Since 1994, her creative gatherings, including plays, short fiction and essays, have been published in a wide number of print and online journals. Recently, she stretched her creative growth by working on a polyvocal theatre performance, Vigil, with Outer Urban Projects.
Young Adas Short Story Prize
Rebecca Green
Jaqueline Moore
Rebecca Green is an author, librarian and book reviewer, who loves horses and zorses. (A zorse is a zebra-horse hybrid.) In 2025, Rebecca won the Spiers Prize for her middle grade novel A Girl, a Boy, a Horse and a Zorse, which was published in 2026 by UWA Publishing. Rebecca is currently writing the sequel.
Jacqueline Moore is a long-term Williamstowner, English teacher, curriculum writer and examination assessor. In her spare time, she loves to read and has been a loyal patron of the Willy Lit Fest. Jacqueline enjoys and learns a great deal through reading the perspectives and voices of young writers from diverse backgrounds.
Introducing our Judges for the Jennifer Burbidge Writing Prize
Rhonda Galbally
Steph Amir
Dr Rhonda Galbally AC has been a CEO, Chair and board member for over thirty years, across business and the not-for-profit sector, the public sector and philanthropy. As a woman with a lifelong disability, she first began focusing on disability rights and policy in the early 1980s while working at the Victorian Council for Social Services. She next became the CEO of the Sidney Myer Fund and the Myer Foundation, and in that role served as Chair of the Australian Association of Philanthropy. Dr Galbally was appointed as the founding CEO of a number of new organisations, including the Australian Commission for the Future, the Australian International Health Institute, the Australian National Preventative Health Agency and Our Community Pty Ltd. She established the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) and was appointed as the Independent Chair of the Review of Drugs Poisons and Controlled Substances Legislation (the Galbally Review). Dr Galbally was a member of the expert four-person panel that developed the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. She then went on to chair the Federal Government's National People with Disability and Carers' Council.
Steph Amir is a Melbourne-based creative whose work has been published in literary journals across Australia and internationally. In 2021, she was a Writeability Fellow at Writers Victoria, a fellowship for writers with disabilities, and in 2023 she published her debut poetry collection, Pieces That Fit. When not working or reading, you can find her paddleboarding at Williamstown beach or on Instagram @steph_kaymir.