{"id":220149,"date":"2025-10-12T22:43:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T22:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/220149\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T22:43:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T22:43:09","slug":"barnes-wins-inaugural-bundyi-writing-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/220149\/","title":{"rendered":"Barnes wins inaugural Bundyi Writing Prize"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tMonday, 13 October 2025 \u00a0 Books+Publishing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/booksandpublishing\/\" class=\"entry-social\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> @booksandpublishing<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bundyi Publishing has announced Shannon Barnes as the winner of the inaugural Bundyi Writing Prize for her mixed-genre novel Strangelands.<\/p>\n<p>Barnes wins a $10,000 cash prize, manuscript development, and a publishing contract with the Bundyi imprint.<\/p>\n<p>The judging panel, which included publisher at large Anita Heiss, Simon &amp; Schuster publishing director Ben Ball and consultant editor Bianca Valentino, called\u00a0Strangelands \u201ca bold and original work that blends truth-telling and intergenerational trauma with a contemporary political backdrop and elements of the supernatural. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIts visceral emotional depth and immersive language powerfully convey the enduring impacts of colonisation and the Stolen Generations, while exploring identity, land, and cultural resilience through a layered, multifaceted lens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barnes is a proud Ngiyampaa Wangaaypuwan woman (with ties to Wiradjuri on her paternal moiety side), living with her four children on Tubba Gah Wiradjuri Country (Dubbo). She is a writer, creative, and founder of Boomalli Consulting.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She said, \u2018I thank the judges for reading Strangelands\u00a0through a culturally and politically sensitive lens and with an understanding my book, which like our existence, weaves between two (physical) worlds, a spiritual realm that provides us with our strength and layered between these are the struggles faced in life. The book was a cathartic write for me and its storyline has played out in my mind long before words reached a page.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Bundyi has acquired world rights to Strangelands, and plans to publish the novel in early 2027.<\/p>\n<p>Photo credit: Alicia May Photography.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"catlist\">Category: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/?category_name=awards-news\" class=\"catitem\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Awards<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/?category_name=local-news\" class=\"catitem\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Local\u00a0news<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Monday, 13 October 2025 \u00a0 Books+Publishing @booksandpublishing Bundyi Publishing has announced Shannon Barnes as the winner of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[1204,1246,61985,61988,61982,7103,223,61987,12435,88,61984,25136,61986,61983],"class_list":["post-220149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-asia-pacific","tag-australia","tag-author-interviews","tag-book-awards","tag-book-news","tag-book-reviews","tag-books","tag-bookseller-jobs","tag-ebooks","tag-entertainment","tag-library-news","tag-new-zealand","tag-publishing-jobs","tag-publishing-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}