We need your Own Voices stories!

Voices from the Intersection, in conjunction with Allen & Unwin, is offering a mentorship opportunity for up to two emerging Own Voices writers and illustrators across the picture book, middle grade and young adult (YA) fiction genres. Entries are now closed.

Own Voices stories – diverse stories from creators who identify as First Nations, People of Colour (POC), LGBTQIA+ and/or living with disability – are massively underrepresented in published Australian fiction for children and young adults.

Up to two applicants across the three genres will receive direct feedback and one round of personal editing from Rebecca Lim, who co-founded Voices from the Intersection with Ambelin Kwaymullina. The edited pitch documents will then be read by Allen & Unwin, with a view to further publication opportunities.

About Voices from the Intersection

Voices from the Intersection was co-founded in 2016 by acclaimed Indigenous academic, artist and children’s & YA author Ambelin Kwaymullina, and illustrator, editor and children’s & YA author Rebecca Lim, to address the continuing underrepresentation of diverse Australian voices in children’s and YA publishing and the lack of a formal movement to tackle the kinds of systemic biases that keep diverse people out of writing, editing and publishing spaces.

So far, Voices from the Intersection has held a free, face-to-face publisher pitch day for emerging Own Voices creators in 2017, published Meet Me at the Intersection, a groundbreaking anthology of YA #OwnVoices memoir, poetry and fiction through Fremantle Press in 2018, and contributed to internationally published academic research (across 2019 — 2022) into the lack of diversity in published Australian picture books.

Terms and Conditions

Submissions must be from emerging Own Voice creators of any age (ie the creator must be First Nations, POC, disabled and/or LGBTQIA+ and the work must reflect their lived experience). If the applicant’s Own Voice status cannot be appropriately verified, their application will not be considered. Applicants must be living in Australia at the time of application.

One entry per person – by a single creator. Co-authored texts, or author-illustrator teams, will not be accepted. Illustrations must be supplied with a story by the same creator – no general folios, please. Works can have been self-published in the past, or mentored before in the past.

Allen & Unwin will read the finalists’ work after the round of mentoring by Rebecca is complete, but are under no obligation to work with, or publish, the work of the finalists if they do not deem the work to be of publishable standard or suitable for their list at that time.

All applicants must be emerging. They cannot have had any previous full-length work published by a global publisher (one which is part of a group with offices or affiliates outside of Australia). Applicants can have had short stories published, can have an agent, can have self-published or been published by a small Australian independent press.

If Allen & Unwin chooses not to work with, or publish, the work of a finalist, the finalist will be free to take the product of the 2022 Voices mentorship to other publishers.

Any published work by Allen & Unwin resulting from this 2022 mentorship opportunity will bear a reference to the work arising from the Voices from the Intersection initiative on the imprint page.