This year we awarded our first ever Certificate of Excellence. The student was Yunha Back from Kent Road public school. You can read Yunha’s story here.

WINNERS: 

Junior Primary A – Year 2: Eleanor Searle, Dubbo South Primary School, for ‘Fairy Land’ 
Junior Primary B – Year 4: James Liu, Knox Grammar Preparatory School, for ‘Life as a Movie’ 
Senior Primary– Year 6: Yunha Back, Kent Road Public School, for ‘Where the Sound of Light Exists’ 
Junior Secondary – Year 7: Allegra Barboza Martello, Central Coast Steiner School, for ‘The Girls Who Don’t Sit Still’ 
Senior Secondary – Year 10: Mia Jackson, Churchland Senior High School, for ‘Must Have: The End’.

The 2025 Marjorie Barnard Short Story Award

WINNER:  
Catherine McElroy, Young NSW, for ‘Swinging Gates’. Read Catherine’s story here.

The 2025 Ernestine Hill Memorial Short Story Award 

WINNER:  
Susan Temby, Terry Hills NSW, for ‘Let This Place Speak’. Read Susan’s story here.

SHORT LISTED:  
Sharyn Munro, Port Macquarie NSW, for ‘Time for the Piper’  
Alex Elizabeth Wormald, Fitzroy VIC, for ‘Unsettled Earth’. 

The 2025 Rae Cerhan Australiana Ballad Award 

WINNER: 
Helen Harvey, Worrigee NSW, for ‘Song of the Depression’. Read Helen’s poem here. 

2nd PLACE: 
Rebecca Hodges, East Bentleigh VIC, for ‘Ballad of the Watercolour Outback’ 

3rd PLACE:  
Jodie Kewley, Red Hill South VIC, for ‘The Promised Rain’.

The above prize-winners were announced at the Annual FAW Awards Luncheon held in Sydney on May 2, 2026.