Discover our exciting Author Talk Program with visiting authors inspiring your reading and writing:

Writing and Author Events in 2025:

2025 Annual Banjo Paterson Writing Awards Entries Winners

The winners in the Banjo Paterson Writing Awards are:

Shelly Kelly, from Queensland for the Short Story Kumori and the Day of a Thousand Feelings. The story gives a deep insight into a neuro divergent world with originality and powerful expression. 

The Contemporary Poetry section was won by David Judge, from Victorica, for his poem Soul Search about a range of reflections on moving away and coming back to a long departed rural home.  It addresses issues – friendship lost, the end of the boom years and economic decline, the loss of services such as banks and medical care, and lost young love. David also won in 2022 and 2024. 

For the Children’s Award we had the unusual case of the same winner for the Third and Second Prizes. Both prizes were won by James Davies, of Sydney, for his poem Glitchwood about a technology-driven fake, and the poem Dandelion in the Wind featuring an alternative view of a plant. 

The winner was Ebony Inman, from the Central West, for the short story The Coward’s Peace. A deeply moving story about war. The first scene is a dramatically described firing squad, and then a flashback that explains why a military man is tried for cowardice with evocative language and literary skill. And readers can make up their own minds if the man should’ve been tried or not.  

Congratulations to all who entered the awards. We had a record number of entries. Thank you too – to our wonderful judges who had the challenging task of selecting the winners.  The call for entries will be on the anniversary of Banjo’s birthday – Tuesday 17 February 2026. Stay tuned for details. 

Please note the winning entries can be viewed on the Recollect website – a place to share history, heritage and stories of the Central West: www.recollect.net.au

And Book Your Spot for these fantastic upcoming author events: 

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• Claudia Harrison Author Talk at Grenfell Library on Wednesday 19 November at 10.30am chatting about her new book The Oldest Daughter. Please book here.
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• Mapping Orange: How explorers, surveyors and cartographers made their mark at Orange City Library on Thursday 20 November at 5pm – 7pm. Come along and support Orange & District Historical Society members who have written this important book to enhance our knowledge about the development of Orange. The event is supported by Collins Booksellers. Books will be available for sale for $40 each on the night. Please book your place here. 
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• Bestselling author Hugh Mackay launches his new book Just Saying with Collins Booksellers at Orange City Library on Tuesday 25 November at 5.30pm – 7pm, then Cowra Library on Friday 28 November at 10am. Supported by Collins Booksellers.
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• State Library of NSW Big Book Club Chat with Demelza from Collins Booksellers & Jasmine from Central West Libraries with author Kelly Rimmer on favourite books and what makes an excellent Book Club read, followed by a Livestream conversation with three hosts of the State Library’s Friends Book Club – Roanna Gonsalves, Jonty Claypole and Sophie Gee at Orange City Library on Friday 28 November at 5.30pm – 7pm. Book your spot here. 

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  At Blayney Library Kim Kelly launches her latest book Touched on Tuesday 2 December at 10.30am.

  Kim Kelly is author of several novels, including The Rat Catcher: A Love Story, which was longlisted for the ARA Historical Novel Prize, and Ladies’ Rest and Writing Room which won the 2024 Non-Fiction 20/40 Finlay Publishing Prize. Kim is also currently in the midst of PhD research at Macquarie University. Her recently published lyric essay on kidney donation appears in the anthology Writing Illness and Disability: Poised on the Pointe of Pain: Nureyev’s Foot and Other Essays.

  Her latest book Touched won the 2025 Non-Fiction 20/40 Finlay Lloyd Publishing Prize.

  The judging panel said “documenting the damaging role of anxiety in our lives is hardly new, but Touched takes us inside the destabilising riot of a three-day panic attack with such insight, honesty and humour that the perspective we gain is revelatory and overwhelmingly hopeful.”

  “This book has a wonderful breadth of understanding—of the author’s own crazily complex family, of the wider issue of anxiety across society, and of her own voyage as a highly competent yet vulnerable being in a worryingly unhinged world.”

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  Meet Joshua Gilbert with Orange Together at Orange City Library on Friday 5 December at 10.30am. Josh is a well-known climate and environmental advocate, having bridged the climate change and agricultural discussion to lead one of the first proactive, international climate change motions within an agricultural organisation. Josh has launched his book Australia’s Agricultural Identity: An Aboriginal Yarn based on Indigenous knowledge. All welcome. This event is supported by Collins Booksellers, Orange. 

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Thank you to our amazing authors who visited during 2025:

Erika Cramer – Becoming Magnetic

Local author Bill Walsh – Big Bill Mackay

Heather Knight – Poets, Painters and Pioneers: Banjo Paterson’s Remarkable Family

Nicole Alexander – The Limestone Road

Local author Leanne Wood – Under the Cover of Closeness

Matt Murphy – Gold

Ana Scarf – Last of the Cavalrymen: Memoirs of Major General Robert Harley Wordsworth

Orange Readers and Writers Festival:

Kelly Rimmer – Commercial Fiction Writing Workshop

Festival Main Day:

Debra Oswald – One Hundred Years of Betty

Kyra Geddes – The Story Thief

Mark Dapin – Lest

Dr Stephen Gapps – Uprising

Jane Caro – Lyrebird

Alice Peel – How to be a Good Enough Kid

Local author Kelly Rimmer – The Midnight Estate

Local author Beckie Plant – Friends It starts with Hello

Michael Brissenden launched Dusk and Paul Daley launched The Leap

Local author Claudia Harrison – The Oldest Daughter

Cory Alpert – A Treachery of Images – Truth, Democracy and AI

Local author Lindy Whale – Leroy the little frog with a big heart

Fiona McIntosh – The Soldier’s Daughter

Adam Courtenay – My Father Bryce

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