Published in Overland Issue 227 Winter 2017 · Uncategorized Nakata Brophy Prize: Judges’ notes Jennifer Mills, Katherine Firth and Tara June Winch This year, the Nakata Brophy competition focused on the short story. Notes from the judges – author Tara June Winch, Trinity College’s Katherine Firth, and Overland fiction editor Jennifer Mills – are below, followed by the entry that placed first in this year’s competition, Evelyn Araluen’s ‘Muyum: a transgression’. The two runner-up stories, Amy McGuire’s ‘Tea and dying’ and Allanah Hunt’s ‘Invisibility isn’t only a power superheroes have’, are available to read at overland.org.au. First place Muyum: a transgression – Evelyn Araluen An extraordinary piece of writing from the first line to the last, this story really stood out for the judges. The hyper-lyrical, dreamy quality is thoroughly immersive, giving a sense of the inner life in a way that’s reminiscent of Eimear McBride. Some of the lines send shivers down the spine: the narrator’s ‘mouth full of ghosts’, the library that is ‘heap and broken image’. It is no surprise to us to learn that the author is also an accomplished poet who was a runner-up in the poetry section of the Nakata Brophy Prize last year. ‘Muyum: a transgression’ is a mysterious story with a living voice, one that will linger; we think it would make an excellent piece for radio. Runners up Invisibility isn’t only a power superheroes have – Allanah Hunt What begins as a story of young and apparently carefree friends on the cusp of adulthood ends with a reminder of the way their lives are mediated by structures beyond their control. The story’s descriptive quality and quiet menace impressed us, and its engaging dialogue kept us wanting to read more. Tea and dying – Amy McGuire A thoughtful, playful story that deals with the theme of mortality, building an intimate picture of a family piece by piece, introducing the reader to their circumstances with telling details. We felt this story well composed in terms of prose and imagery – here’s a writer able to navigate a spectrum of emotion between comedy and tragedy with lightness and ease. Read the rest of Overland 227 If you enjoyed this story, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Jennifer Mills Jennifer Mills was Overland fiction editor between 2012 and 2018. Her latest novel, The Airways, is out through Picador. More by Jennifer Mills › Katherine Firth Katherine Firth is an academic and writers at Trinity College, University of Melbourne. More by Katherine Firth › Tara June Winch Tara June Winch is an Australian writer based in France and Australia. She has written essay, short fiction and memoir for Vogue, Vice, McSweeneys, and various Australian publications and anthologies. Her first novel, Swallow the Air won numerous literary awards. More by Tara June Winch › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 1 15 June 202616 June 2026 · Reviews Transubstantiations: Toby Fitch’s Or Grace Roodenrys The final trick of Or is that in the end it stages something utterly universal: the search for a momentary recognition of ourselves in language, the maybe-hopeless pursuit of those “very exceptional circumstances” in which something half-truthful might be said, the unending attempt to build something that feels real with the limited resources one has. This is a very old, a very sacred enterprise. We might call it poetry. 11 June 202612 June 2026 · Solidarity The zero-sum state: what the Royal Commission reveals on the future of Muslim life in Australia Sara Cheikh Husain The zero-sum logic that the Royal Commission’s witnesses have voiced through the IHRA definition is a colonial act of oppression. If the state succumbs to that logic, as every indication suggests it will, Muslim political solidarity with Palestine risks becoming not merely unrecognised but structurally criminalised. The full institutional protection of one community will come to be constitutively built on the misrecognition of another.
