Awards

2026 – First Nations Writers Festival Book of Cultural Significance for Warra Warra Wai.
2025 – WINNER – Lane Cove Literary Award, Short Story Award, for ‘The Names of Those Lost’.
2025 – WINNER – State Library of NSW History Prize for Warra Warra Wai. 
2025 – WINNER – ACT Book of the Year Award for Warra Warra Wai. 
2025 – Prime Minister’s Literary Prize shortlisting for Warra Warra Wai. 
2025 -Shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards, Work of State Significance and
The University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award for Warra Warra Wai. 
2024 – WINNER – Canberra Critics Circle Award for Warra Warra Wai. 
2024 – WINNER – ACT Literary Award Winner for Warra Warra Wai. 
2023 – Commendation in the Victorian Community History Awards – for A Darker Shade of Moonlite.
2022 – WINNER of the Special Book Award, ACT Notable Awards for On A Barbarous Coast.
2022 – Shortlisted for an Aurealis Award for Science Fiction Novella, The Cruise to the End of the World
2020 – WINNER of the Roly Sussex Short Story Prize for the  Lost Journal of Edmund Kennedy’.
2019 – WINNER of the ACT Writing and Publishing Awards, non-fiction book, for Backseat Drivers
2019 – Shortlisted for the ACT Writing and Publishing Awards for a fiction novel, Years of the Wolf
2019 – Shortlisted for the Aurealis Award for a Horror Novel for Years of the Wolf
2018 – Shortlisted for the Carmel Bird Digital Literary Award for a collection of stories, ‘Everybody Loves a Good Cook Book’.
2018 – Shortlisted for the Victorian Community History Awards for Backseat Drivers
2018 – Shortlisted for the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize for ‘The Great Explorer’.
2018 – Shortlisted for the Overland Fair Australia prize for ‘Saw as we came in on both points of the Bay’.
2016 – WINNER – Tasmanian Writing Award, for the story ‘No Man is an Island’.
2015 – WINNER – Victorian Community History Award for Ned Kelly Under the Microscope
2015 – WINNER – ACT Writing and Publishing Award, for Uncle Adolf
2010 – Shortlisted for the ACT Writing and Publishing Awards, for Futures Trading.
2008 – Antarctic Arts Fellowship.
2006 – WINNER – Queensland Premier’s Award (Steele Rudd Short Story award), for a Funny Thing Happened at 27,000 Feet.
2004 – Shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Award (Steele Rudd Short Story award),
for the Princess of Cups.
2000 – Bicentennial Medal for Kurikka’s Dreaming.
1999 – WINNER – ACT Chief Minister’s Book of the Year Award for Unwritten Histories.
1998 – WINNER – First Prize in the Max Harris Literary Awards, the story ‘Ned Kelly’s Son’.
1997 – WINNER – Canberra Critics Circle award for literature.
1994 – Shortlisted for the Australian/Vogel Award for an unpublished manuscript for Of One Blood.