30 April, 2025

Announcing the 2025 International Lamplight Fellowship Awardees

We are delighted to announce the selected writers for the 2025 International Lamplight Fellowship, a two-week online programme for published fiction writers in partnership with Varuna the National Writers’ House (Australia). Now in its third year, the Lamplight Fellowship is an opportunity for the eight writers to build international connections and benefit from the combined mentorship and support of both organisations. 

Congratulations to Irish writers June Caldwell, Orla Mackey, Deirdre Cartmill and Geraldine Walsh and Australian writers Courtney Collins, Sam Elkin, Julie Janson and Amanda O’Callaghan.

The programme will run from 9-20 June 2025 and includes a mentorships with Mary Anne Butler and Conor Kostick, online Q&A sessions with best-selling Australian writer Pip Williams and award-winning Irish writer Mike McCormack, and an online industry exchange, with representatives from the Irish and Australian publishing industries, including Penguin Random House Australia publisher Meredith Curnow.

Read about the awardees below. Four awardees are based in Ireland (Irish Writers Centre awardees) and four awardees are based in Australia (the National Writers’ House awardees).

Irish Writers Centre Awardees

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

June Caldwell is a Dublin-based fiction writer. She is twice a prizewinner of the Moth Short Story Prize (2024 & 2014) and has been awarded two literature bursaries from the Arts Council of Ireland. In 2017 Room Little Darker was published by New Island Books to critical acclaim in Ireland and in 2018 by Head of Zeus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deirdre Cartmill is best known as a poet and screenwriter but she started her career writing short stories. She has recently been shortlisted for the Fish Short Story Prize and the Bray Literary Festival Flash Fiction Competition. She is currently working on a short story collection and this is the project she will focus on during the International Lamplight Fellowship. She has published three poetry collections. Her most recent publication is The Wind Stills to Listen (Arlen House 2023).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orla Mackey is a writer and teacher based in Kilkenny. She studied English Literature at Trinity College. She was a finalist of the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair in 2022. Her first novel, Mouthing, was published by Penguin Books last year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Geraldine Walsh is an author, book editor, and journalist frequently contributing to The Irish Times. She is the author of Unraveling Motherhood (Hatherleigh Press, 2023), a unique exploration of the transformative experience of motherhood. Geraldine is a facilitator with the Irish Writers Centre, teaching non-fiction and editing courses. Her fiction has been shortlisted in various competitions and has appeared in Frazzled Lit, The Storms, Aimsir, Agenda, amongst others. She is working on her debut novel, which placed in the Top 100 of the 2024 Bridport Novel Prize. Geraldine was a 2024 awardee of the Irish Writers Centre National Mentoring Programme.

Varuna Awardees

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Courtney Collins is an author, screenwriter, and producer. Her first novel, The Burial (Allen & Unwin, 2012), was published in ten countries and shortlisted for prizes including the Nita B Kibble Literary Award, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and the Stella Prize. It is being adapted as a feature film with the support of Screen Australia. Her second novel, Bird, was published in August 2024 by Hachette. Her first feature film, Life Could Be A Dream, directed by Jasmin Tarasin, will be released later this year. Courtney holds a Master of Creative Writing (Melbourne Uni), and has taught creative writing in Australia and overseas. She recently submitted her PhD ‘Working Against Whiteness in Creative Literary Production’ for examination. She is an Asialink Fellow and a Sidney Myer Fellow. In 2017, she started Ngukurr Story Projects, producing and story producing short films in southeast Arnhem Land with local Indigenous artists and storytellers. Along with a slate of screen projects, she is at work on her third novel, about an aspiring actress set in Dublin in the 1970s and regional NSW in the 2000s.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sam Elkin is a writer, radio maker and community lawyer living on unceded Wurundjeri land. In 2022, Sam co-edited Nothing to Hide: Voices of Trans and Gender Diverse Australia. In 2024, Sam published his debut book Detachable Penis: A Queer Legal Saga which was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Humour and the USA’s Foreword INDIE Awards for LGBTQ+ non-fiction.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Julie Janson is a Burruberongal woman of Darug nation, living on Yuin Country. Julie is a novelist, playwright and poet. Novels: Compassion (Magabala March 2024); Madukka the River Serpent (UWAP 2022), longlisted for Miles Franklin Award and Davitt 2023. Benevolence (Magabala 2020 and Harper Collins USA, UK 2022). Shortlisted Barbara Jefferis Award 2022, NIB Award 2020 and Voss Award 2020. Poetry: Winner of Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize 2016 and Judith Wright Poetry Prize 2019. Runner Up Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize 2025. Plays: Black Mary Belvoir St Theatre and SOCOG Festival of the Dreaming 1997. Gunjies Belvoir St Theatre, Eyes of Marege Sydney Opera House; The Crocodile Hotel play shortlisted Patrick White Award and Griffin Award. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amanda O’Callaghan is an Irish/Australian writer. Her fiction has been awarded and shortlisted in numerous contests in Australia, Ireland, and the UK, including the Bridport Prize, Fish Short Story Prize, Bristol Prize, Aeon Award, and Bath Flash Fiction Award. Her story collection, This Taste for Silence (UQP), was shortlisted for the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction and longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize (UK). Amanda holds a PhD from the University of Queensland, and has been awarded a Queensland Writers Fellowship. She is currently working on a novel and a second short story collection. She lives in Meanjin (Brisbane). www.amandaocallaghan.com.   

 

Each year, we run up to 20 free programmes to support writers’ development, including mentoring, residencies, competitions and bursaries across the island of Ireland. To keep up to date with our opportunities, subscribe to our bi-monthly newsletter.