The Tasmanian Writers’ Prize is for short stories up to 3,000 words having an island, or island-resonant, theme.
The winning entry receives a cash prize of $500 and all finalists’ stories will appear in the Forty South Short Story Anthology 2026.
Entries close February 14, 2026
HOW TO ENTER
Please read the terms and conditions (which can be found here)
Buy your entry via the online bookshop here
Submit your entry via the electronic form
JUDGES
NADIA MAHJOURI
Nadia Mahjouri is a Moroccan Australian author from nipaluna, lutruwita. She works as a counsellor, specialising in maternal mental health and has previously worked in health policy, governance and academia, focusing on ethics and feminist philosophy. She is the host of The Whole Truth: Motherhood and The Writing Life Podcast, where she interviews authors about how they manage to keep creating in amongst work and family life.
Her debut novel Half Truth was published by Penguin Random House in February 2025. Previously, her work has been published in the anthology Emergence (Hardie Grant), Island online, Mamamia and in feminist academic journal thirdspace, amongst others. She was awarded an Arts Tas ASA Mentorship, a lutruwita playwriting mentorship from Australian Plays Transform, a QWC Varuna Fellowship and an Ian Potter Cultural Trust Creative Fellowship, and has been shortlisted in QWC Publishable Competition, The Deborah Cass Prize and SBS Emerging Writers Competition.
ALAN CARTER
Alan Carter was born in Sunderland, UK. He emigrated to Australia in 1991 and now lives in splendid semi-rural, semi-isolation south of Hobart, Tasmania. In his spare time, he follows the black line up and down the local swimming pool, or drags on his wetsuit and braves the icy waters of the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. Alan is the author of Prize Catch, which is set in Tasmania, and three novels in the Nick Chester series: Marlborough Man (winner of the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel), Doom Creek and Franz Josef. He is also the author of the Fremantle-set DS Cato Kwong series, which includes Prime Cut (winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction), Getting Warmer, Bad Seed, Heaven Sent and Crocodile Tears.
RAYNE ALLINSON
Rayne Allinson is a writer and teacher with a PhD in History from the University of Oxford. She has worked and travelled in many parts of the northern hemisphere, and is now Assistant Publisher at Forty South.
