Undergraduate students have demonstrated their writing talent through poetry, short stories, works of creative nonfiction and personal essays selected for this year’s Monash Undergraduate Prize for Creative Writing shortlist. From a total of 217 entries, these 15 pieces represent the extraordinary quality of undergraduate writing taking place in Australia and New Zealand today.

The shortlist will be judged by Roanna Gonsalves (author of The Permanent Resident), Ian See (editor) and Katherine Brabon (Monash University Ambassador, winner of The Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award 2016). The winner will be announced on 19 June at the opening night of Emerging Writers’ Festival. The overall winner will receive $4,000 and be published in Kill Your Darlings and in Verge, Monash University’s creative writing anthology. The highest-placed Monash student will win $1,000, bringing the total possible prize pool to $5,000 – Australia’s richest undergraduate writing prize.

The 2019 shortlist is:

Dario Davidson – ‘Access Revoked’
Laura Clark – ‘A and I’
Anna McShane-Potts – ‘Blaze’
Fiona Murphy – ‘Cornered’
Eva Caley –’Daughter Daughter’
Mirabai Pease – ‘I, daughter’
Lily Holloway – ‘I wander, she holds my hand’
Callie Zucker – ‘Motherhood Is A Burlap Sack’
Madeline Coleman-Bock – ‘Red’
Gina Song – ‘Roll Credits’
Ellen Vickerman – ‘Salmon is Beachside’
Victor Senthinathan – ‘Suburban Graveyard’
Kayla  Rasmussen – ‘The Law of Conservation’
Stephanie Susanto – ‘The Narcissist in Armani’
Amy Lane – ‘Will’s List’

The Monash Undergraduate Prize for Creative Writing is proudly supported by Monash University Faculty of the Arts.