Past Awards

The Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were established in 1985 by The Hon. John Cain, Premier of Victoria, to mark the centenary of the births of Vance and Nettie Palmer and to honour and reward literary achievement by Australian writers.  

The winners of the main suite of awards – the prizes for Fiction, Non-Fiction, Drama, Poetry, The John Clarke Prize for Humour, Award for Indigenous Writing and Writing for Young Adults – each receive $25,000. The winner of the Award for an Unpublished Manuscript receives $15,000. In 2026 Prize for Young Adult Writing will be renamed in honour of John Marsden.  

The winners of the six main suite categories go on to contest the overall Victorian Prize for Literature, worth an additional $100,000. This is the single most valuable literary award in the country. 

The John Clarke Prize for Humour Writing is awarded every other year and will return for the 2027 Awards for books published between 1 January 2025 and 31 December 2026.  

The Awards are administered by The Wheeler Centre on behalf of the Premier of Victoria.

Explore the previous winners and nominees below.