The Kathryn Purnell Poetry Prize
The Kathryn Purnell Poetry Prize is awarded for a poem of no more than 50 lines, this biennial award is named in honour of a much-loved member of SWWV.
Kathryn was born in Canada and lived in France, England, Scotland, Egypt, Indonesia and Africa. When she married an Australian she moved permanently to Melbourne. Kathryn continued her education at the University of Melbourne and became a creative writing tutor. Her poetry and prose was published in many magazines and broadcast on ABC radio. She was an editor in the Luna collective and won many awards for her work.
Kathryn Purnell ran poetry workshops in her home for members, who greatly benefited from her expertise and mentoring. She edited a number of poetry anthologies on behalf of SWWV.
After her death, the Society set up the Kathryn Purnell Poetry Prize in her honour. It is open to SWW members in all branches and non-members.
The winners of the Kathryn Purnell Poetry Prize 2023 were:
- Ist Prize: Gillian Telford (Suitable - UK1950's)
- 2nd Prize: Beverly Lello (Ngarigo Country)
- 3rd Prize: Paige Spence (National Air and Space Museum)
- Highly commended: Keely Mewett (Storyteller)
- Highly commended: Emily Edwards (Streets of Elysium)
The 2023 judge was Angela Costi, who is a poet, playwright, essayist and reviewer with backgrounds in social justice and community arts. Read the judges report here.
The 2021 winners were:
You can read Tegan Schetrumpf’s judges report here.
The 2019 winners were:
The 2017 winners were:
- First Prize: ‘You Are…’ by Mary Jones
- Second Prize: ‘Washing Her Hair’ by Lorraine McGuigan
- Third Prize: ‘Nest’ by Lorraine McGuigan
- Honourable Mention: ‘Kangaroo’ by Lorraine McGuigan, and ‘A Poet Speaks To Her Progenies’ by Rhonda Poholke
The 2015 Kathryn Purnell Poetry Prize was won by Judith Green.
A biennial award for a poem of no longer than 50 lines on an open theme and style.
Open to all women poets across Australia and SWWV members abroad, the award is managed by the Society of Women Writers Victoria in memory of the late poet Kathryn Purnell.
- Fees: SWWV Members: $10 per entry or $20 for 3 entries, Non-members $15 per entry or $30 for 3 entries.
- Winning entries will be published in the Society’s anthology, Sparx.
- SWWV reserves first publishing rights (in Sparx)
- Copyright remains with the author.
- Terms and Conditions can be found here
About our judge.
Alice White has been writing poetry since she was nineteen. She has been a featured reader at a number of venues including Passionate Tongues, Inspyr, St Kilda Music & Poetry Inc and the Melbourne Poets Union. She has also been published in a range of journals, participated in The Emerging Writers' Festival, had several poems broadcast on the radio and one travel on Melbourne trains! Over the years she has collaborated with musician Cate Langley with whom she created the musical Falling Feathers (based on her unpublished children's novel) which was performed by BDC Dance and Drama in 2016. She has two books of poetry written with Nick Hamer-Smith: Heartstricken (Ginninderra Press 2001) and Heartspoken (self-published in 2023.) Alice has taught English and Literature in high schools for over 30 years and has led workshops for writers – including for our society which was very well received.
