2024 Grieve Project Winners Announced
On Saturday 31st August at Newcastle Memorial Park, storytellers gathered for ‘Lament: A Community Gathering’, a public space created to gather as a community and share stories of grief and loss. The event showcased of a range of pieces entered in the 2024 Grieve Project and included the announcement of this year’s award winners.
CEO of The National Association for Loss and Grief (NALAG), Trudy Hanson, congratulates Hunter Writers’ Centre on another highly successful Grieve Project. ‘The National Association for Loss and Grief (NALAG) has been a supporter of the project since its inception and is proud to sponsor the major prizes. Grief arrives in many forms, and each of us expresses grief in our own unique way. The Grieve Project allows the expression of our grief through the medium of art.’
This year The Grieve Project was proudly sponsored by the National Association for Grief and Loss (NALAG) NSW, Palliative Care NSW, Pettigrew Family Funerals, Everymind/Mindframe, All About Grief, Griefline, and Lake Macquarie and Newcastle Memorial Parks. There were also additional prizes through In Memoriam Awards.
2024 Grieve Project Winners
Award — Storyteller, ‘Title of Work’ — Format
National Association of Loss and Grief (NALAG) NSW Award — Linda Atkins, ‘Six Weeks Later’ — Prose
Palliative Care NSW Award — Natalie A Vella, ‘It Started With a Crimper’ — Audio
Pettigrew Family Funerals Award — Rita Potente, ‘For I have loved you’ —Poetry
National Association of Loss and Grief (NALAG) NSW Award — Morgan Jones, ‘Shadows and Tall Trees’ — Photograph
National Association of Loss and Grief (NALAG) NSW Award — Natalie Bock, ‘It’s All Mental’ — Poetry
All About Grief Award — Alex Grantham, ‘Not as much as them’ — Prose
Hunter Writers’ Centre Award — Damen O’Brien, ‘Mourning’ — Poetry
Griefline Award — J.F. Bolton, ‘Lovely Freyja’ —Prose
Newcastle Memorial Park Award — Malaika Mfalme, ‘Imagine’ — Song
Lake Macquarie Memorial Park Award — Sian Taylor, ‘Fever Dream’ — Prose
Everymind Award — KT Major, ‘Paper Guitar’ — Prose
Compassionate Friends Awards — Linda Harding, ‘The Water of My Life’ — Prose
In Memoriam: Manny Arcaro — Nat Newman, ‘One Of Us’ — Prose
Chris Morley Prize for Creative Use of Non-standard Terminology — Luciana Croci, ‘stone and bone’ — Poetry
In Memoriam: Yvonne Avery Hannah Power, ‘How to Lose Your Mind’ — Prose
In Memoriam: Robert Miller — Javier Bateman ‘The house is haunted (and we can’t leave)’ — Poetry
In Memoriam: Gaetan Briffa — Natalie Grant, ‘How to: A Pantoum for Grief’ — Poetry
In Memoriam: Carmela Moretti — Kate Maxwell, ‘Into the Forest’ — Poetry
In Memoriam: Antonia Buono — Maree Reedman, ‘Bruce Dances with His Mother’ — Poetry
2024 Grieve Project Anthology
The accompanying 2024 Grieve Anthology captures the diverse voices and experiences of grief and loss. The anthology presents the longlisted works from the 2024 competition and is available from the Hunter Writers’ Centre website.
About The Grieve Project
The Grieve Project commenced in August 2013 during Grief Awareness Month as a local writing competition hosted by Hunter Writers’ Centre. It aimed to provide an outlet for individuals to explore the often-overlooked topics of grief and loss through the written word. The inception of The Grieve Project struck a chord within our community, inspiring people, whether they identified as writers or not, to attempt to articulate the ineffable, to give shape to complex emotions surrounding loss. Following its impactful debut, the Grieve Project expanded its reach nationally, and from its modest beginnings in 2013, it has since grown into a nationally recognised initiative. In 2024, we invited writers and storytellers nationwide to participate in the Grieve Project and expanded the scope of storytelling genres to include prose, poetry, and a variety of multimedia formats such as film, audio, graphic storytelling, and visual imagery. With this expansion will aim to enrich the storytelling landscape of the Grieve Project and further amplify the conversation about grief and loss in our community.
About Hunter Writers' Centre
Hunter Writers’ Centre is an incorporated, not-for-profit charitable organisation in service to the stories and storytellers of the Hunter region and beyond.
