The annual Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship commemorates the work of Hazel Rowley
(1951–2011).
Hazel benefited in her early career from such a fellowship. When researching the Richard Wright biography, Hazel won a fellowship grant that enabled her to travel to the USA to access the Wright papers at the University Library in Austin, Texas. The Fellowship offers an emerging or established writer a similar opportunity to enable them to research or progress their writing.
Jennifer Martin was announced as winner of the 2026 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship and awarded $20,000 for her proposed biography of Australian journalist Eva Sommer. In 1956, at the age of 22, Eva Sommer beat a field of experienced men to win Australia’s first national prize for journalism, a Walkley Award. When Eva died in 2019 aged 84, this principled, courageous and complex daughter of Jewish immigrants who fought to live and love on her terms had been forgotten: this biography will tell that story.
“The judges loved Jennifer’s approach and fluid writing style which brings Eva’s remarkable story to life,” said Della Rowley, sister of Hazel Rowley.
“It was a joy to read Jennifer Martin’s proposal, the way she so vividly and lovingly brings to centre-stage a wonderful subject and history,” said Fellowship judge Christos Tsiolkas. “She is a deserving choice for this last year of the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship.”
“There couldn’t be a more fitting or laudable winner of the final Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship than Jennifer Martin, with her finely wrought, deeply researched resurrection of a woman whose remarkable life and achievement have been lost to masculinist mythmaking about the history and culture of Australian journalism,” said Fellowship judge Clare Wright. “I simply can’t wait to get my hands on this biography. I expect my response will be mirrored by that of other readers: why weren’t we told?”
In 2025 the Hazel Rowley judges decided to give a Highly Commended award to Jennifer Martin, who is writing a biography of Eva Sommer, who, in 1956 at the age of 22, won Australia’s first international prize for journalism, the Walkley Award, the nation’s equivalent of the US Pulitzer Prize.
Jennifer Martin is a Senior Lecturer in Communication at Deakin University, where her research interests include literary journalism and Australian media history. Jennifer is a former award-winning journalist of more than 30 years’ experience working across all media platforms, including Leader suburban newspapers, SBS, ABC and community radio. She is also the author of two young adult novels.
Link to Award Announcement: https://journalism-history.org/2025/01/16/timke-wins-journalism-historys-2024-25-essay-competition/
The link to the prize-winning article is here and also below: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00947679.2025.2506994
This Fellowship has been established with a bequest from the late Dr Ann Moyal AM, FAHA, a leading Australian historian of science, technology and telecommunications, as well as a biographer and author. Dr Ann Moyal was an alumna of Varuna, and wanted to provide opportunities for other writers and scholars to enjoy the support and collegiality of a Varuna residency.
Three fellowships are offered each year to established writers with an Australian focus who are developing an original work founded on research in the broad fields of the humanities and social sciences, particularly history, biography, climate change, science, technology, the arts and the environment.
Dr Jennifer Martin has been awarded the 2024 David Abrahamson Prize for the Best Article in Literary Journalism Newsletter.
The prize was awarded for Dr Martin's piece “Girl Reporter”: Tracking Intergenerational Trauma through the Story of Eva Sommer, the Inaugural Winner of Australia’s First National Journalism Prize”.
The piece is about Eva Sommer who, at the age of 22, was the first-ever Walkley Award winner, for her article about a stowaway with amnesia and no identification papers.
The judges praised Dr Martin's article for bringing "wide attention to an important but hitherto little-known literary journalist", particularly a woman when female writers/ journalists "continue to get less exposure and recognition than their male counterparts".
The Davd Abrahamson Prize is administer by the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies, a multi-disciplinary learned society whose aim is to encourage scholarly research and education in literary journalism.
You can read Dr Martin's award-winning article here: ialjs.org/girl-reporter-tracking-intergenerational-trauma-through-the-story-of-eva-sommer-the-inaugural-winner-of-australias-first-national-journalism-prize/
