Enter South Coast Writers Centre 2026 Poetry Award

Submissions are now open for the SCWC 2026 Poetry Award.

This year’s theme is ‘states’, inspired by and in collaboration with the Wollongong Art Gallery exhibition Set States, which brings together a selection of video works by Kate Mitchell exploring shifting psychological states and embodied experiences: states of mind, states of action, states of play, states of being.

Presented in dialogue with works from the Wollongong Art Gallery collection, Set States invites new connections between contemporary Australian video art and historical representations of human agency, ritual, and transformation. The exhibition considers themes of play, perception and performance – suggesting that to “set states” is to be actively engaged with the world, however unstable it may be.

Last year, the SCWC Poetry Award was judged by Judith Beveridge, recent recipient of the Creative Australia Lifetime Achievement in Literature Award, and honoured six award winners from more than 230 entries. 

This year, the Award will be judged by esteemed poet Julie Janson, co-recipient of the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize 2016 and winner of the Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2019, and Peter Frankis, chair of the SCWC board. First prize will receive $1000, with second prize, the Ron Pretty SCWC Member Award, and the Wollongong Art Gallery Ekphrastic Award each receiving $100. All winning entries will be published in the 2027 SCWC Anthology of Writing.

For more information about this year’s prize, past winners, and to book a spot in the Poetry Award workshop run by Ali Jane Smith in February at Wollongong Art Gallery, visit the SCWC website.