Time to write: Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund names 2025 Fellowship recipients
October 30, 2025
Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund has announced the three recipients of its prestigious 2025 Fellowships for established and emerging Australian writers.
Each year, the Cultural Fund awards two $80,000 Fellowships to support mid-career or established writers to sustain their creative practice over 12 months. The Frank Moorhouse Fellowship for Young Writers, now in its third year, is valued at $10,000 and supports an emerging writer aged 18-35 years to develop a new work of fiction. Together the Fellowships recognise outstanding literary talent and provide vital support for Australian writers at
different stages of their careers.
The 2025 Fellows are:
- Julie Janson – Author Fellowship
- Julienne Van Loon – Fellowship for Non-Fiction Writing
- Dženana Vucic – Frank Moorhouse Fellowship for Young Writers
Burruberongal woman of the Darug Aboriginal Nation and South Coast NSW-based novelist, playwright and poet, Julie Janson, has been awarded the 2025 Author Fellowship to write Deliverance and Fornication. This will be the third book in her historical trilogy, following Benevolence and Compassion (the latter was shortlisted for the 2025 Miles Franklin Literary
Award).
Julie’s work explores themes of colonial dispossession, Aboriginal resistance, justice and identity. Her new novel will continue her acclaimed reimagining of early colonial history from Indigenous perspectives, following the story of a young woman navigating survival and cultural erasure on the 19th-century frontier.
“I’m deeply honoured to receive this fellowship. As an Indigenous writer with fifty years of playwriting, poetry, and fiction behind me, I continue to write with passion and political purpose. My historical and crime novels celebrate fearless Indigenous characters and bring to light Australia’s hidden histories. I owe great gratitude to the Indigenous writers who came before me – their courage and creativity continue to inspire my work,” said Julie.
A distinguished Australian Indigenous writer with an extensive background in theatre and literature, Julie has published critically acclaimed novels and poetry collections, with her plays performed nationally and internationally.
Victorian author, Julienne Van Loon, has received the Fellowship for Non-Fiction Writing to complete Women of the Future: Six essays on world-leading scientists. The book is interested in the potential of women’s ideas to intervene in and impact on our global futures.
“The Fellowship for Non-Fiction Writing is a significant investment in this manuscript, and it will make all the difference. I’m so excited to get to work!
“Writing is such a roller coaster, and this vote of confidence has come, to be honest, at a crucial time for me. I have been struggling to balance work and family life but also to maintain confidence in and momentum with my own creative practice. Australian writers and publishers are doing it incredibly tough and every day brings new challenges for almost everyone I know. It seems to me that maintaining and supporting local voices and local careers in the literary arts has never been more challenging or important,” said Julienne.
An award-winning author of fiction and literary non-fiction, Julienne’s writing frequently bridges art and science, exploring the social and philosophical dimensions of material life.
Writer and poet, Dženana Vucic, has been awarded the Frank Moorhouse Fellowship for Young Writers to develop her debut novel Palimpsest (working title). An autofictional narrative spanning war, migration and memory, Palimpsest traces intertwined stories of a mother and daughter shaped by the Bosnian war and the ongoing reconstruction of identity in diaspora.
“I will be using the Frank Moorhouse Fellowship to support the drafting of a manuscript which I’ve spent the last few years researching and planning. Financial support is both vital to artistic endeavours and exceedingly rare and I am grateful for the opportunity to dedicate myself to writing that this Fellowship allows me,” said Dženana.
Dženana has published widely in Australian literary journals including Overland, Meanjin, Sydney Review of Books and Kill Your Darlings, and her poetry and essays have appeared in numerous anthologies.
Copyright Agency CEO, Josephine Johnston, said “The Fellowships reflect our Cultural Fund’s ongoing commitment to investing in the future of Australian stories. Each of these remarkable writers is undertaking ambitious, original work that deepens our national storytelling. Through these Fellowships we are proud to help create the conditions that make such meaningful creative work possible.”
For more information about the Fellowships and other Cultural Fund initiatives, visit copyright.com.au/culturalfund