This event was a hit in 2025 and promises the same this year.

Short-listed writers will be announced at the 2026 Festival Opening Night Party on Friday 4/9/46 in the following categories:

· Eumundi Writers Festival Short Story Award 2026

· Eumundi Writers Festival Young Writers Short Story Award 2026

· Eumundi Writers Festival Poet Laureate Award 2026

At this event these Short-list winners will provide up to 400 word recitals of their entries and receive audience feedback with feedback forms provided to free ticket holders.

Eumundi Writers Awards

Our intention is to build a collection of works over time to capture words and reflections on Eumundi’s past, present and future. We are looking for stories and poems that speak of our place here in the northern Sunshine Coast and Noosa hinterland. We want to showcase our local talent and to win the hearts and minds of those who read stories about this place, about our place.

Poet Laureate

We aim for our Poet Laureate Award to provide a local pathway into the Australian Poet Laureate and the forthcoming Australian Youth Poet Laureate Awards. The Poet Laureate Award seeks to amplify the diverse voices of local poets, to help them share their messages widely.

All winners will receive $750 cash from the Awards sponsor, $100 Berkelouw Bookstore Voucher and a five day Writing Residency donated by the Eumundi Guesthouse and B&B in their retreat cottage.

Special Guest

Roland (Roly) Sussex is Professor Emeritus of Applied Language Studies at the University of Queensland, where he had taught and researched from 1989 until his retirement in 2010. Before that he taught Linguistics and Russian at the University of Reading (UK) and Monash University in Melbourne, and was the foundation Professor of Russian at the University of Melbourne from 1977 to 1989.

He is currently doing research at the University of Queensland as an Emeritus Professor. He has been chair of the Library Board of Queensland, President of the Alliance Française of Brisbane, and President of the English-Speaking Union (Queensland). He is currently Vice-President (Digital Engagement) of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences. His current research is concerned with language, communication, inter-cultural communication and pain.

Roland Sussex has been broadcasting to Queensland on ABC Radio since 1997, and more recently to South Australia and the Northern Territory. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2012, and made a Chevalier des Palmes Académiques by the French Government in 2017, and a Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020.

He enjoys working on his acreage to the west of Brisbane, riding bikes seriously in lycra for fitness and fun, reading, listening to classical music, and being a father to his two grown-up children, and grandfather to his two grandchildren.

Sue McPherson is a Freescribing Storyteller who lives on the Sunshine Coast. As a writer Sue enjoys making change, pushing boundaries and challenging her readers and audience. Currently Sue writes for TV, Film, Scripted Podcasts and for Young Adult fiction. She loves meeting people from all walks of life, they are her inspiration. Sue wrote the book “Grace Beside Me” an Australian fantasy drama television series for children which premiered on NITV on 16 February 2018 and later aired on ABC Me. Sue is the Winner of the 2011 Black&White Indigenous Writing Fellowship, was shortlisted for the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, Young Adult Literature and a Finalist in 2021 for the Deadly Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Literature.

Laura Jean McKay is the author of The Animals in That Country (Scribe 2020) - winner of the prestigious Arthur C Clarke Award, The Victorian Prize for Literature, the ABIA Small Publishers Adult Book of the Year and co-winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 2021. The Animals in That Country has been shortlisted for The Kitschies, The Stella Prize, The Readings Prize and the ASL Gold Medal and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. The novel is one of Readings Best Australian Books of the 21st Century. The French edition, Les animaux de ce pays (éditions Dalva 2025, translated by Lise Garond), won the 2025 Prix Gargantua and was shortlisted for the Prix 30 millions d’amis and the 2026 Prix Maya. Laura is also the author of Holiday in Cambodia (Black Inc., 2013) and an Adjunct Lecturer in Creative Writing at Massey University. She was awarded the NZSA Waitangi Day Literary Honours in 2022. Her latest collection is Gunflower (Scribe 2023), shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards and named one of The Guardian’s best books of 2023. Laura was the 2025 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Fellow to Cork, Ireland.

Kári Gíslason is a writer and academic who teaches creative writing and literary studies at QUT. He is the author of The Promise of Iceland (UQP, 2011), which told the story of return journeys he’s made to his birthplace, and the novels The Ash Burner (UQP, 2015) and The Sorrow Stone (UQP, 2022). He is the co-author, with Richard Fidler, of the bestselling Saga Land (HarperCollins, 2017), and most recently a memoir of fatherhood set in Corfu, Running with Pirates (UQP, 2024). He has also written works of travel journalism, essays, reviews and radio scripts. His current project is a crime novel, set for release in 2027.

Host

Dr Suzanne Campin is the Inaugural Eumundi Writers Festival Director. Suzie and husband David have been supporting artists of multiple genres by providing artist-in-residence programs at Eumundi Guesthouse for many years. Suzie has had multiple careers and is now an art guide, small business operator and is working on her first book. She is a community advocate who loves Eumundi and the Noosa Hinterland. Her PhD thesis is about business ethics and she assures us there is such a thing.

Discover more about the Eumundi Writers Festival here: https://eumundiwritersfestival.com.au/

Contact the host of Eumundi Writers Festival 2026 Award Recitals

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