Orange author is runner-up in new writing award

A short story that was first enjoyed by Orange City Life readers three years ago has won its author a major placing in a newly-created national writing competition.

The Ernestine Hill Memorial Short Story Award, for rural stories up to 4000 words, was established by the Fellowship of Australian Writers Inc (NSW), and received 85 entries from across Australia in its inaugural event.

Local author Greg McFarland was one of five shortlisted writers to be invited to a presentation and luncheon at the Royal Automobile Club in Sydney earlier this month for the announcement of final placings, where he finished equal runner-up.

His fictional story ‘The Naming of the Road’ was about a farming family’s loss of identity and history when the local council wrongly renames their rural access road, and how the family seeks justice, and the chaos that ensues when most of the town gets involved in the dispute.

Greg hopes the story will be book-published later this year.

At the Ernestine Hill Memorial presentation, Fellowship President Colleen Parker said the new award was able to be created through a $120,000 bequest intended to raise awareness of a little-known yet pioneering Australian writer.

The substantial bequest, from an admirer of Ernestine Hill’s work, means the competition will be able to be run annually for many years to come.

Speaking of where Ernestine Hill sits in the pantheon of Australian literature, Colleen said that some thirty years after Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson began creating their legends about the Australian bush, Ernestine Hill followed – and went even further geographically, an adventurous woman travelling alone (with a handgun for protection!) into every corner of the Outback.

From the 1930s to 1950s, she wrote several books – factual and fictionalised – about remote regions including the Northern Territory, the Kimberleys, and Far North Queensland. She focused on the loneliness and social hardship of the Outback of that era, but she just as strongly wrote about the stunning natural beauty and the new opportunities of the time such as gold mining and wild cattle grazing.

But Ernestine Hill, whilst a successful commercial author in her day, did not quite find the enduring fame of her male predecessors and many of her books have subsequently long been out-of-print.

However, the trend is starting to be reversed, with at least two of her ground-breaking titles reprinted so far and becoming available on book-selling sites such as Booktopia and now Dymocks.

And, interestingly, if you want to look at an original copy, you don’t have to travel any further than Orange City Library which houses the Mary Elizabeth Byrnes Memorial Library, specializing in Australian literature.

This heritage library has six Ernestine Hill treasures, which is believed to be one of the largest collections of her original work to be found outside of the State Library in Sydney. (Please note the Mary Elizabeth Byrnes Memorial Library is not for loan, but may be accessed with the assistance of Orange City Library staff.)