More judges for the 2025 Boroondara Literary Awards will be announced soon.
Young Writers Prose – Nicole Hayes
Nicole Hayes is an award-winning author and podcaster.
Her young adult novels have won or been shortlisted for multiple awards, including the Children’s Peace Literature Award, the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, the WA Premier’s Book Awards and the Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards. She also co-wrote the only Australian Football League (AFL)-licensed junior fiction series with Adrian Beck. She is also a founding member of the all-female AFL podcast, The Outer Sanctum.
In 2024, she was awarded a PhD in Creative Writing from Deakin University, where she also teaches writing.
She has been running writing workshops across different formats and for different age groups for more than 15 years.
Open Short Story Judge – Aoife Clifford
Aoife Clifford is the author of the best-selling literary crime novels All These Perfect Strangers, Second Sight and When We Fall. Her novels have been shortlisted for both the Ned Kelly Awards and the Davitt Awards, and longlisted for the Australian Book Industry Awards General Fiction Book of the Year and the Voss Literary Prize. Her short fiction has won the SD Harvey Short Crime Story Award and the Scarlet Stiletto Awards, as well as being recognised internationally. Her latest novel is It Takes A Town.
Young Writers Poetry – Emilie Zoey Baker
Emilie Zoey Baker is an award-winning Australian poet and performer who has toured nationally and internationally as a writer, performer, and producer. She was a Fellow at the State Library of Victoria, poet-in-residence at Museums Victoria and the winner of the Berlin International Poetry Slam.
Emilie is the host and co-producer of the spoken word event Better Off Said, alongside Marieke Hardy, and a celebrant for Marry Your Friends — a joyous celebration of holy mate-rimony that has toured across Australia. She teaches slam poetry in schools around the world and is the founder and creative director of OutLoud, Australian Poetry’s Victorian youth slam competition.
