7-ON PLAYWRIGHTS: Noëlle's Windham Campbell Prize

Tuesday, 18 March 2014

Noëlle's Windham Campbell Prize

I (Noëlle) got some amazing, wonderful news last week. Totally out of the blue. One minute I’m sitting at my computer working away on a radio script, the next there’s a phone call from America … and then I’m dancing around the apartment and wondering how on earth I’m going to be able to keep this to myself for the next 4 days. I did, BTW.

The news: I‘ve been awarded one of the 2014 Windham Campbell Literary Prizes from Yale. You have to be nominated for them, and I'd absolutely no idea I had been. Then there’s a whole post-nomination process of judging, and you only ever discover you were in the running if you win. No applications, no long or shortlists.

The Prize is given in drama, nonfiction and fiction, to writers in the English-speaking world, for a body of work, or potential. And it’s a generous award, not only in monetary terms (US$150,000Yes—Wow!), but in spirit. You can tell it was initiated by 2 writers, Donald Windham and Sandy M Campbell, because it comes with no restrictions or even any reporting requirements. It’s simply given to provide you with the opportunity to focus on your work free of financial concerns. My only obligation is to go to Yale in September to receive the prize in person and take part in a literary festival with my 7 fellow winners. And how great is it to be in such illustrious company. I’m really looking forward to meeting the other writers in September, and getting to know the work of those whose writing I’m not so familiar with.

Not sure yet what I’ll write. I always have several ideas and projects in various stages of development. Perhaps someone will ask me to write a libretto—wouldn’t that be brilliant? Meanwhile, I’ve got 6 months to consider the possibilities.

More info about the prize and the 2014 winners here.

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About 7-ON

7-ON Playwrights was established in 2005 by Donna Abela, Catherine Zimdahl, Ned Manning, Noëlle Janaczewska, Vanessa Bates, Verity Laughton and Hilary Bell. Seven minds that don’t think alike but are simpatico in this—our belief in the transformative properties of our artform and its place in Australian culture. With over 200 plays between us, our work has been produced on stages across Australia. Internationally, we have been produced in Botswana, the US, the UK, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Germany, Denmark, France, Canada, Vietnam, Korea and Japan. We have over 40 awards between us including: 14 Australian Writers’ Guild Awards, 4 Griffin Playwriting Awards, 3 Premiers’ Literary Awards, 4 Inscription Awards, an Adelaide Critics’ Circle Prize, a Phillip Parsons Young Playwright’s Award, a Wyndham Campbell Prize, a Centenary Medal, a Patrick White Playwrights’ Fellowship, and a Human Rights Award for Drama. As 7-ON we advocate for playwrights, initiate performance and publishing projects, and support and celebrate each other’s work. We create projects that are best served by a multitude of voices. These have included The Seven Needs (Griffin, 2007), Thus Spake Zarathustra (Wollongong University, 2008), Long Shadows (STC workshop, 2009), Platonic (Hothouse development, 2013), We Are The Ghosts Of The Future (Rocks Discovery Museum, 2015), and various works under the banner of Old Texts Revisited (ABC Radio, 2009), I Contain Multitudes (Novemberism Playwriting Festival, 2011) and No Nudity, Weapons or Naked Flames (MayDay! Playwrights’ Festival, 2013) which presented a selection of monologues from our anthology of the same name published by the Federation Press in 2012. We are also included in Currency Press’ anthology of short plays Short Circuit (2009).