MEDIA RELEASE
Heather Rose Wins Prestigious Alice Award for Lifetime Contribution to Australian Literature
Launceston, Tasmania — 21 September 2026 —
Heather Rose has been named the recipient of the 2026 Alice Award, presented on Saturday in Launceston by the Australian Society of Women Writers.
The Alice Award is one of Australian literature’s most prestigious honours, presented biennially to a woman writer judged by her peers to have made a distinguished, long-term contribution to Australian literature. Past recipients include some of the nation’s most acclaimed literary figures, among them Alice Pung OAM (2024), Jackie French (2022), Dr Clare Wright (2016), Kate Grenville (2002), Elizabeth Jolley (1992) and Eleanor Dark (1978).
Tasmanian Heather Rose is one of Australia’s most celebrated and bestselling authors. Her 2017 novel The Museum of Modern Love — inspired by artist Marina Abramović’s performance piece The Artist Is Present — won the Stella Prize, the Christina Stead Prize and the Margaret Scott Prize, and has since been adapted for the stage and is in development as a feature film. Her 2019 political thriller Bruny won Best General Fiction at the Australian Book Industry Awards, and her 2022 memoir Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here was widely praised for its unflinching honesty. Her latest novel, A Great Act of Love, was published in 2025 and longlisted for the 2026 ARA Historical Fiction Prize.
Announcing the Alice Award for 2026, Tasmanian President of the Society of Women Writers, Mary Farr, on behalf of Australian Society of Women Writers’, said “that the biennial literary award honours an Australian woman who has made a distinguished, long-term contribution to Australian literature.”
“To receive the Alice Award for a lifetime of literary achievement feels both humbling and clearly indicates I’m getting older!” Rose said in receiving the prize which was awarded to her by Dr Bob Brown. “This award carries the names of writers I have admired and been inspired by my whole writing life. Tasmania has shaped everything I write, so to be recognised here, at this year’s even held in Launceston, and surrounded by this community of friends and fellow writers, is enormously meaningful to me. It’s the camaraderie and collegiality we share as writers that makes this life especially rich.”
The Alice Award trophy was presented at a ceremony attended by members of the Society of Women Writers from across the country, with nominees from South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland Victoria and Tasmania. The only other Tasmanian to win the award has been Dr Margaret Scott in 2004.
Heather Rose becomes the latest in a distinguished line of recipients stretching back to the award’s inception, joining a roll call that includes Ruth Park, Mem Fox, Dame Mary Durack and Judith Wright among its most celebrated names.
For more information or interview requests, please contact Samantha Ryan samr@allenandunwin.com
