Two powerful queer voices are taking centre stage in this year’s Fogarty Literary Award shortlist, with authors Seth Malacari and Chuckie Raven recognised for their compelling, authentic portrayals of LGBTQIA+ lives in regional Australia.
Their young adult novels– Boy Friends and Glimmers in the Sea Glass – have been selected from 38 entries for one of WA’s most prestigious literary prizes for emerging writers aged between 18 to 35.
The Fogarty Literary Award is a biennial prize. Established in December 2018 by Fremantle Press in association with the Fogarty Foundation it is given to an unpublished manuscript by a Western Australian writer aged 18 to 35 valued at AU$20,000, the author also receives a publishing contract.
Previous winners of the award include Rebecca Higgie with The History of Mischief, Brooke Dunnell with The Glass House and The Skeleton House by Katherine Allum.
Seth Malacari’s queer YA romance, Boy Friends is a refreshing and upbeat exploration of first love, self-discovery and reality TV. Set between the Great Southern coastal towns of Denmark and Walpole, the first-person narrative is full of insightful observations and wry self-reflection, charting the highs and lows, and the beauty and pain of forming meaningful bonds and finding your true self in early adulthood.
Malacari is a nonbinary trans masculine author and editor living in Dianella, WA. He edited the anthology, An Unexpected Party (Fremantle Press, 2023), featuring stories from emerging authors from the LGBTQIA+ community. Their work has been published in various anthologies, including Head Under Water, Ourselves: 100 Micro Memoirs and Emergence: SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition. Seth is currently undertaking a creative writing PhD at UWA.
Chuckie Raven’s queer YA novel Glimmers in the Sea Glass takes us from the oppressive silence of small towns to the locked wards of a children’s hospital, immersing us in the lives of two young protagonists separated by twenty years. This engrossing page-turner pulls the reader deep into the heart-wrenching, heartwarming rollercoaster lives of its characters,
Raven is a youth worker and craftsperson living in Nollamara, WA. They’re the founder and lead of the Perth Pride Shed, Perth’s first LGBTQIA+ community shed. They are passionate about protecting queer kids and, through their work with The Freedom Centre, have met many brilliant young minds who give them endless hope for the future.
Chuckie writes stories they wished they’d had growing up. Their debut novel Glimmers in the Sea Glass is born out of their own queer experience and their family’s experience of living in WA’s South West.
The other works shortlisted for the award are Out There, In Here by Kununurra based writer Jessica Baker, and Wreckage by Serena Moss from Waggrakine, Geraldton.
Fremantle Press publisher and Fogarty Literary Award judge Georgia Richter said she was struck by the way all four stories were born of the regions,
“Two of the writers are based in regional WA – the North West and Midwest. Stories are set in the Wheatbelt, the Great Southern, the South West, and Northern NSW. Plotwise, it does make sense to set a novel in a small community, but the rendering of place in each of the shortlisted works also celebrates regional Australia – our differences and the many things we have in common.” Richter said.
Three novels were also highly commended by the judging panel, which consisted of Fremantle Press publishers Georgia Richter and Cate Sutherland, Fogarty winner and writer Brooke Dunnell, and Centre for Stories Program Coordinator Camila Egusquiza Santa Cruz. They were: Kayla Browne for Dark Red, Patrick Marlborough for Wagger’s Shamploo and Elliott Stone for Encore, Encore.
The winner will receive $20,000 courtesy of the Fogarty Foundation, a publishing contract with Fremantle Press, and a $1500 writing fellowship from Centre for Stores, to be announced at a community event at Government House Ballroom on Tuesday 3 June 2025.
