The prize builds on the longstanding partnership between the Emerging Writers Festival and RMIT's writing and publishing programs across Vocational Education, the undergraduate Bachelor of Arts (Creative Writing) and postgraduate Master of Writing and Publishing.
Administering the prize provides RMIT Writing and Publishing students the opportunity to learn the process of reading, critiquing, and longlisting a significant literary prize. Students become readers of entries, meeting for robust conversations, then compiling a longlist that is provided to experienced judges to further shape into a shortlist and winner.
The 2026 judges of the shortlist and winner are author and RMIT Senior Lecturer in Writing and Publishing Rose Michael, Emerging Writers Festival Executive Director Jes Layton, and critic and bookseller Marina Sano.
In July 2026 it was announced that Bridie Noonan is winner of The Speculate Prize, for her piece 'The Inbetween'. Noonan wins a seven night residency at RMIT's iconic McCraith House on the Mornington Peninsula, $1,500 prize money inclusive of a stipend for the residency, a free full pass to the 2026 National Writers' Conference run by Emerging Writers' Festival, and more.
All longlisted entries will be published in a Bowen Street Press anthology in late 2026, a process overseen by Tracy O'Shaughnessy, RMIT's Program Director of the Master of Writing and Publishing program. There will also be a free writing workshop offering practical application in how to imagine otherly, supported by RMIT's Regenerative Futures Institute.
The Speculate Prize is a partnership between RMIT University and Emerging Writers Festival.
RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.
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