Announcing the winners of the Fisher’s Ghost Writing Prize 2025
Campbelltown City Library and WestWords are honoured to announce the highly commended and winning poets and writers of the 2025 Fisher’s Ghost Writing Prize.
The poems and short stories from these sixteen writers will appear in this year’s Fisher’s Ghost publication …Down the Road which will be available for loan from all Campbelltown library branches, and is available to view online below. The award winners will also be receiving cash prizes from a prize pool of over $1200.
The winners and highly commended recipients were announced at the publication launch ceremony at the new HJ Daley Library in Campbelltown last Saturday, 8th November.
The 2025 competition drew a record number of more than 140 entrants responding to the theme of:
“…Down the Road”.
Click on the image below to enlarge.
Thank you to this year’s judges: Luke Kains, Christopher Marcatili, Lee McKerracher, Shakira Piggott, Davina Russell and Brittany Kempaiah. We further thank and congratulate the community of Campbelltown who submitted in record numbers into this year’s competition.
From the judges: “The future of creative writing is alive and well in Campbelltown, and every author who submitted an entry should be proud of what they have achieved. Those who were highly commended or winners – well done and congratulations on making the judges’ job quite a difficult one, but also an inspiring one.”
On behalf of WestWords, congratulations again to all the winners and highly commended entrants.
Photo Credit Campbelltown City Council
Fisher’s Ghost Writing Prize 2025
Welcome to the Fisher’s Ghost Writing Prize. This creative writing competition is open to everyone who lives, works or attends school (including University or TAFE) in Campbelltown Local Government Area.
Entries can include: Short Stories, narrative non-fiction, memoirs or poetry.
Submissions will be judged on originality, creativity, language construction and engagement with the theme.
Entries are asked to creatively respond to this year’s theme: … Down the Road
Winning and highly commended entries from each age group will receive a cash prize and be published in this year’s anthology.
Entries for the 2025 competition are now closed! Thank you for entering.
Winners and Highly Commended writers will be announced at a special ceremony held at the Campbelltown Library during this year’s Fisher’s Ghost festival. Keep an eye on your emails for an invitation from the library.
Word Limit
5oo words
or 25 lines for poetry
Categories
Grades 4 – 6
Grades 7 – 9
Grades 10 – 12
Adult
Entries open
Friday 30 June, 2024
Entries close
Monday 8 September, 2025, 10am
Theme
… Down the Road
Read the full Terms and conditions of entry here.
For more information please contact WestWords
Email admin@westwords.com.au
1800 937 896
All entries must be original work and not copied in any way.
The Fisher’s Ghost Writing Prize will not accept any work generated or edited by A.I. (large language models). Several layers of plagiarism tools are applied to every entry, as well as the discernment of our judges. Any work discovered to be A.I. generated will be disqualified.
Judging
Your work will be judged on how original it is, how you have constructed your story or poem, the use of language, (including creative expression, grammar, sentence structure, punctuation and spelling), the way you have developed characters, atmosphere, or setting or used words in a creative way and how it relates to the theme.
Workshops
As a part of the Fisher’s Ghost Writing Prize, WestWords in partnership with Campbelltown City Council are hosting 4 free creative writing workshops. Click on the links to RSVP.
Friday, 11 July, 10.30am-12pm, Eagle Vale Library – for Children aged 10-12
Thursday, 17 July, 10.30am-12pm, Glenquarie Library – For Teens aged 13-15
Wednesday, 9 July, 2pm-3.30pm, Ingleburn Library – For Young Adults 16-18
