The Historical Novel Society Australasia is recognised as the home of the historical fiction genre in Australasia as the third arm of the international Historical Novel Society. The society considers the genre provides entertainment and education to readers while offering a valid perspective beyond the viewpoint of the historian. Both the imagination and dedication of historical novelists create authentic worlds which can enrich a reader’s understanding of real historical personages, eras and events.
It’s time to catch up on the sessions you missed in the HNSA 2021 Main Weekend Program or revisit the ones you enjoyed! There are 28 sessions recorded including In Conversations, Panels and the First Pages Pitch Contest. These will be available to view on demand for 3 months ending at midnight on 1 February 2022. If you purchased a Conference ticket prior to the event, you will have already been emailed instructions on how to access the recordings. If you’d like access to the recordings, it’s not too late. You can purchase discounted post-conference a ticket now.
The ARA Historical Novel Prize is the richest genre-based literary award in Australasia, thanks to our Foundation Partner, the ARA Group. The Prize incorporates a category for outstanding Children and Young Adult (CYA) literature, in addition to the Adult category. As such, after just two years of operation, the ARA Historical Novel Prize is worth a total of $100,000 in prize monies. The Prize awards $50,000 to the Adult category winner, with an additional $5,000 awarded to each of the remaining two shortlisted authors. In the CYA category, the winner receives $30,000, while the two short listers receive $5,000 each. For more information about the 2022 Prize, subscribe to our newsletter.
The HNSA promotes the writing, reading and publication of historical fiction, especially in Australia and New Zealand, through its biennial conferences held since 2015. Our events showcase the best literary talent and enable readers, writers and publishing professionals to celebrate the genre. The 2021 HNSA Virtual Conference was an online celebration of one of the world’s most popular genres over two weekends. The theme of our 2021 Conference was ‘Recovery—Restoring, Reconciling and Re-imagine Lost Histories’. Our speakers examined the role and responsibility of historical novelists in recovering lost, overlooked or deliberately erased histories, and whether the genre can play a part in achieving truth in reconciliation.
Our next conference will be held in 2023.
The inauguration of the ARA Historical Novel Prize is the crown jewel in HNSA’s suite of literary contests.
HNSA also runs the the Elizabeth Jane Corbett Mentorship for Young Adult historical novelists, ARA HNSA Short Story Contest, the TCW HNSA First Pages Pitch Contest, and introduced the Colleen McCullough Residency held on Norfolk Island in 2019.
It’s time to catch up on the sessions you missed in the HNSA 2021 Main Weekend Program or revisit the ones you enjoyed! There are 28 sessions recorded including In Conversations, Panels and the First Pages Pitch Contest. Chat salons and workshops were not recorded to preserve privacy and intellectual property rights. The recordings will
Historical Novel Society Australasia (HNSA), in partnership with Australia’s leading essential building and infrastructure services provider ARA Group, is excited to announce the winners of the 2021 ARA Historical Novel Prize. The winner of the 2021 ARA Historical Novel Prize – Adult Category is The Burning Island, by Jock Serong (Text Publishing). The winner of
HNSA’s podcast Imagining the Past is back for another series in 2021. In this week’s episode, G.S. Johnston is joined by Pip Williams. Pip chats to Greg about The Dictionary of Lost Words, which was longlisted for the 2020 ARA Historical Novel Prize), her writing process and some of her writing choices. Pip’s first publication was a poem in Dolly magazine
Historical Novel Society
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