By Tim Howard
Clarence Valley freelance editor and emerging author Carlie Slattery has been shortlisted for the prestigious Fresh Ink Emerging Writer Prize at the Newcastle Writers Festival.
While she did not win the top prize, the shortlist nod still marks a significant achievement for a regional writer.
The prize is open to unpublished writers living in regional NSW and is designed to help them take that next professional step.
The 2025 winner, revealed at the weekend, is Hunter region writer Jessie Ansons, who receives $5000 for professional development, a week-long residency at Varuna – The National Writers’ House, and publication of her entry in the summer issue of Swell Magazine, thanks to the generosity of Newcastle wine label Elephant in the Room.
The other shortlisted writers — Ms Slattery, Shannon Benton, Monique Wallace, and Sylvia Wilczynski — each received $250, funded by the festival’s Patrons Program.
The prize was judged by writers Courtney Collins and Natasha Rai, with support from Elephant in the Room, Create NSW, Varuna, The National Writers’ House, and Swell Magazine.
Carlie said the winner “thoroughly deserved” the award.
She spoke with judge after the awards and said she was positive about her work.
“She was very encouraging and positive and just urged me to keep going,” Carlie said.
The act of being shortlisted was something that gave Carlie confidence.
“As a writer you spend so much time alone with your ideas, not knowing if anyone will ever care about them,” she said.
“To have someone read my work and say it’s good enough to be shortlisted – that’s a nice pat on the back that I’m heading in the right direction.”
Slattery worked for several years in the newsroom of now defunct newspaper The Daily Examiner as a sub-editor and now does freelance editing.
Born in Port Macquarie and educated in Newcastle, she relocated to the Clarence Valley where she now lives and writes.
She is currently working on her first novel, Glitterbomb, a coming-of-age story set between the 1990s and today in a fictional North Coast town.
Carlie did not want to reveal much more about the work, which is unfinished and could change significantly before it’s complete.
“It’s not my story, but it’s a world I understand – growing up as a girl on the coast, and the things we absorbed without even realising it,” she said.
For regional writers especially, opportunities like the Fresh Ink prize are rare.
“We don’t always have the networks or access available in the cities,” she said. “I can put the nomination on my CV, and that helps with agents and publishers later.”
She also welcomes the broader shift in Australian publishing where more women and marginalised writers are getting platforms.
“It’s brilliant to see more diversity — more women, more queer writers, more writers of colour. We just need more people to pick up their books.”
Slattery now balances her freelance editing workload, family life and writing time. Her goal: finishing the manuscript and seeing if she can publish it.
