2025 Tasmanian Literary Awards: Writer Johanna Bell takes out two of seven awards

Tasmania’s best writers were recognised at this year’s Tasmanian Literary Awards, with one author taking out two of seven total prizes.

Madeleine Ogilvie Minister for the Arts and Heritage with Johanna Bell prize winner. Picture: supplied

Writer Johanna Bell had a stellar showing at this year’s Tasmanian Literary Awards, taking home two out of a total seven awards.

Ms Bell’s poem “Department of the Vanishing” won her the University of Tasmania Prize for best unpublished literary work, while her sixth picture story book, Digger Digs Down, won the Arts Minister’s Award for Books for Young Readers and Children.

Digger Digs Down was illustrated by fellow Tasmanian Huni Melissa Bolliger in her picture-book illustration debut.

Digger Digs Down, new picture book from award-winning Tasmanian author Johanna Bell and illustrator Huni Bolliger. Picture: supplied

Writers were recognised across the five remaining categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, the Margaret Scott Tasmanian Young Writer’s Fellowship and the Aboriginal Writer’s Fellowship, with winners taking home a collective $125,000 in prize money.

Grief and loss were prominent themes among this year’s works, including in Kate Kruimink’s novel Heartsease, which in telling the story of two sisters reuniting at a silent retreat in the Tasmanian countryside after the death of their mother won the fiction prize.

Maggie MacKellar was recognised in the nonfiction category for Graft, an account of her year spent on a Merino wool farm on the state’s east coast.

The ceremony took place at the Hedberg on Wednesday night.

Arts and Heritage minister Madeleine Ogilvie said the awards sent a “strong message that words matter”.

“The awards demonstrate that words have power and meaning, and that literature deserves to be celebrated, not as a luxury, but as an essential element of a diverse and vibrant society,” she said.

Nunami Sculthorpe-Green, Huni Melissa Bolliger, Johanna Bell, Pam Schindler and Lars Rogers prize winners with Madeleine Ogilvie, Minister for the Arts and Heritage. Picture: supplied

2025 Tasmanian Literary Award winners

Aboriginal Writer’s Fellowship, Nunami Sculthorpe-Green

Margaret Scott Tasmanian Young Writer’s Fellowship, Lars Rogers

Minister for the Arts’ Prize for Books for Young Readers and Children, Digger Digs Down by Johanna Bell, illustrated by Huni Melissa Bolliger (University of Queensland Press, 2024)

Premier’s Prize for Fiction, Heartsease by Kate Kruimink (Pan Macmillan Australia, 2024)

Premier’s Prize for Nonfiction, Graft by Maggie MacKellar (Penguin Random House, 2023)

Tim Thorne Prize for Poetry, say, a river by Pam Schindler (Ginninderra Press, 2023)

University of Tasmania Prize (supported by the University of Tasmania), Department of the

Vanishing by Johanna Bell

People’s Choice Award winners

Minister for the Arts’ Prize for Books for Young Readers and Children – People’s Choice Award, Amazing Animal Journeys by Jennifer Cossins (Lothian Children’s Books, 2022)

Premier’s Prize for Fiction – People’s Choice Award, The Angry Women’s Choir by Meg Bignell (Penguin Random House, 2022)

Premier’s Prize for Nonfiction – People’s Choice Award, Graft by Maggie MacKellar (Penguin Random House, 2023)

Tim Thorne Prize for Poetry – People’s Choice Award, Ways to Say Goodbye by Anne Kellas (Liquid

Originally published as 2025 Tasmanian Literary Awards: Writer Johanna Bell takes out two of seven awards