Each fellow will not only be commissioned to write a sequence of three longform essays (at a rate of $2,000 per essay); they will also get the opportunity to commission and edit a longform essay or review to be published on the SRB. The fellow will receive $1,000 in editorial fees (as well as editorial guidance from the SRB editors), while the author commissioned by the fellow will receive our usual rate of $1,500.
As part of the program’s new emphasis on career development and cohort-building, fellows will be invited to attend a weeklong residency at Varuna, the National Writers’ House, from February 1-8, 2027.
Applications are open to Australian residents and Australian nationals abroad. First Nations critics and CaLD critics are strongly encouraged to apply; one of the three fellowships will be prioritised for a First Nations and/or CaLD writer.
By ‘mid-career critic’, we mean writers with an existing track record of strong critical publications, especially (though not exclusively) in longform (articles of at least 1,500 words), over a period of at least 3-4 years. Applicants who do not meet this threshold will not be disqualified, but may be regarded as less suitable for this program.
However, we understand that, given the paucity of opportunities for sustaining a practice of criticism, careers aren’t always regular and we will take this into consideration.
Applications should be submitted via the SRB’s Submittable portal here.
Applications should include:
- a cover letter (up to 1,000 words);
- a portfolio (3 representative samples of writing);
- a CV of no more than 3 pages.
Your cover letter should explain how you hope to benefit from this fellowship, and briefly sketch out prospective pitches for three critical essays on Australian literature.
Each pitch should extend beyond the single-book review essay to address the larger thematics and tensions within Australian literary culture. We are also interested in pitches that place Australian literature within a global context.
Applications will be judged by the SRB’s Deputy Editor, Dr Tiffany Tsao, and two guest judges, whom we will unveil before applications close.
Judges will take into account:
- The applicant’s track record of consistently producing high-quality critical essays;
- The applicant’s ability to bring new/original perspectives to Australian criticism;
- The applicant’s ability to benefit from the professional development opportunities afforded by the fellowship.
Please direct any further queries to the SRB Editor, Dr James Jiang, at editor@sydneyreviewofbooks.com.
Callout: 2026-2027 JUNCTURE Fellowship
It's back.
The Sydney Review of Books is delighted to invite applications for the 2026-2027 JUNCTURE Fellowship program for mid-career critics. With the generous support of the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund, we are offering year-long fellowships, each worth $7,000, to three critics.
Applications are open now and will close
at noon on Monday, November 23.
In its first iteration (from 2019 to 2022), the JUNCTURE program produced some of the SRB’s most widely read and influential essays, from Melinda Harvey’s critical pastiche of Rachel Cusk to Jeanine Leane’s clarion call to cultural rigour. Our aims were two-fold: firstly, to help writers sustain their critical practice through a sequence of commissions; and, secondly, to provide a platform for critical excellence and experimentation in Australian writing.
These remain the motives for rebooting the program, the importance of which has become more apparent as the calibre of critics applying for our Emerging Critics Fellowship continues to rise. While the JUNCTURE and Emerging Critics are separate programs, we have come to see them as complementary facets of the career infrastructure critics need to survive.
Ensuring the sustainability of critics’ careers also means making critics more versatile contributors to the literary sector. We have thus revised the program to include commissioning and editing new critical work on Australian literature as part of the fellowship process.
See below for full details on eligibility and the application process.
This project is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.
