EJ Brady Short Story Competition

 Australian writers of short stories should now be well aware of the opportunities offered by the EJ Brady prize. The Mallacoota Arts Council has hosted the EJ Brady Short Story Competition for more than a decade. The main prize for a story of fewer than 2500 words, is the handsome sum of $1,500. In recent years we have added another category; this section is called the Very Short Story. For fewer than 700 words you can win $500. 

 Each year the Mallacoota Arts Council organises reading events, both indoors and outside in our unique beautiful locations, where volunteer readers present the winning and short listed stories in original style. Music and poetry are sometimes added to the entertainment.  The competition is promoted through the state writers' centres and regional newspapers. 

About EJ Brady

Edwin James Brady came to Mallacoota in 1909 and set up his "Writers' Camp" at Captains Point, where Henry Lawson visited in 1910. Among his other famous acquaintances were Katherine Susannah Pritchard, Louis Esson (poet and playwright), artist Tom Roberts and William Payne the "New Australia" Utopian reformer. EJ pursued a life-long endeavour to improve the lives of both the writer and the ordinary man. He recalls, "We were radical bohemians, filled with sincere enthusiasms. We dreamt the establishment of a new Hellenic democracy. Literature and the fine arts would be a permanent policy of the administration, and Australia was to become the intellectual leader of the nations, and a fingerpost to the freedom and prosperity of the world."

We name this competition in his honour.