The University of Sydney offers numerous prizes to reward student academic achievement. Most don’t require applications and reward excellence with monetary awards that appear on your transcript; literary prizes do require submission of written work on specific subjects.
The Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize, supported by the Malcolm Robertson Foundation, seeks excellent short fiction of up to 3000 words that explores travel themes loosely. It is open to writers both nationally and internationally from any stage in their writing careers. In 2024’s competition judging panel – Patrick Lenton, Alice Bishop, and Sara Saleh – reviewed over 500 entries before selecting their winning piece: ‘Who Rattles the Night? ‘which will appear in Overland magazine autumn issue. Additionally two runners up pieces will also be published online alongside their print publication date.
As part of its efforts to increase public understanding of Australian history, the University of Sydney annually presents three Book Awards under three headings – Australian History, General History, and New South Wales Community and Regional History. Winners receive cash prizes along with gold, silver or bronze seals that they can place on their covers indicating they won. Furthermore, each book will be listed on AJL’s Book Award website as “Winning Title”.
Clare Jackson, an undergraduate of the Department of History, won the Sidney Thomas Prize in 2023 for her award-winning history of Sydney entitled, The City of Glass. This work garnered critical acclaim and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s History Award. Dr Jackson’s distinguished career as an historian can be characterized by dedication to public service, scholarship and teaching.
AJL’s Book Award is named in honour of Sydney Taylor, founder of the Association of Jewish Libraries and encourager of aspiring authors of Jewish children’s literature. Beginning in 1985, this award was divided into two categories: picture books for younger readers and novels or longer nonfiction works intended for older ones (renamed in 2018 to better reflect reader demographic changes and availability of more high-quality works for teens).
Nominations from readers of any genre are encouraged and the deadline for each month’s nominations is the last day of each month. Nominate an article in any category (or multiple articles of one category). AJL subscribers qualify for discounted entry fees as well as invitations to subscriber events and opportunities/giveaways; for more information regarding applying, see prize guidelines; to purchase gold/silver seals of winning titles directly contact chair of Book Award committee.