The Chief Minister’s NT Book Awards

• All entries must have been published between 01 Jan 2022 and 31 Dec 2023.
• All authors must either be current residents of, or have been born in the Northern Territory, and be Australian citizens or permanent residents of Australia. Proof may be requested.
• To be eligible, self-published works must be publicly available for commercial sale, have an ISBN and have been deposited to the National Library of Australia (and relevant state library/libraries) as is required for legal deposit under the Copyright Act 1968.
• If an eBook is submitted, please send a hard copy or pdf. Judges will not access books via online platforms or systems that require a login, password or payment. 
• Books that include languages other than English are eligible. 
• Translations are eligible as long as they meet all other criteria. 

Non-eligible entries:

• Second edition books, published or electronic versions of books originally released in a previous calendar year.
• Anthologies of poems, essays or stories. 
• Books generated wholly by AI.

• Follow the link to Apply Now.
• Entry fee is $52.50 per book entered. Free for current NTWC members. Payment is made upon application.
• Three copies of the book must be mailed to the NT Writers’ Centre GPO Box 2255, Darwin NT 0801
• Authors can also drop their three copies directly into an NTWC office.
• Darwin Office: Second Floor, Harbour View Plaza, 8 McMinn Street, Darwin 0800.
• Alice Springs Office: Red Hot Arts, 67 Bath St, Alice Springs 0870.

• Each book will be judged by a minimum of two judges.
• Judges will shortlist up to 9 books, and identify 3 winners.
• Categories will be awarded at the judges’ discretion. If insufficient entries are received, judges may elect not to award a category. 
• Judges may move a book into another category if they deem that more appropriate. 
• The shortlist and winners will be awarded to the books deemed to possess the highest literary merit by the judges. 
• In illustrated works for children, the literary and artistic merit of the work as a whole will be considered by the judges.
• The judges’ decisions are final and no correspondence will be entered into with either the judges, the staff or the board of the NTWC or the project sponsors.

• Copyright is retained by the author/s of the work.
• Books that are the collective work of a community group, must have all contributors (authors, illustrators and/or photographers) individually identified as a co-author of the book, and if shortlisted or wins, each member identified should receive an equal share of the prize money.
• If a registered organisation enters a book, and is shortlisted or wins, prize money will be awarded to the registered organisation to distribute equal share of the prize money to each author listed.

Leni Shilton is a poet and educator. Leni grew up in Papua New Guinea and Melbourne and lived in Mparntwe |Alice Springs for 38 years. Leni has a PhD in creative writing. She is the author of two verse novels: Malcolm (2019 UWAP) and Walking with camels – the story of Bertha Strehlow (2018 UWAP) which won the 2020 Chief Ministers Fiction Book Award. Leni regularly judges national literary awards including the 2020 Stella Prize. Leni’s writing appears in anthologies and journals including APJ, Cordite, Plumwood Mountain, Overland, Mantissa Poetry Review and 2022 The Best of Australian Poetry. Leni won the 2022 Inaugural Born Writers Award for her poetry collection Voices. She is now based in central Victoria where she is working on her third verse novel.

Marie Munkara is a Darwin-based writer of Rembarranga and Tiwi descent. She’s the author of five books, including the novel, Every Secret Thing (UQP 2009, Magabala Books 2021), which won the David Unaipon Award in 2008 and the Northern Territory Book of the Year in 2010; 

A Most Peculiar Act (Magabala Books 2014); a memoir, Of Ashes and Rivers that Run to the Sea (Penguin Vintage 2016) and two children’s books, Rusty Brown and Rusty and Jojo. 

Jane Godwin is a highly acclaimed author of over forty books for children, across all styles and ages. Her work is published internationally and she has received many commendations, including the Queensland Premier’s Award (Children’s Books), the Aurealis Award and the Animal Welfare Award, and shortlistings in the CBC Book of the Year Awards, the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, the New South Wales State Literary Award (Patricia Wrightson Prize) the YABBA Awards, the Speech Pathology Awards, The Family Award for Children’s Books, and the Australian Book Industry Awards. For many years, Jane worked as the Children’s Publisher at Penguin Books Australia.