Miranda Michalowski wins 2026 Writing NSW Varuna Fellowship

The playwright will use time at Varuna to develop her debut novel, Bad Art.

By The Book Source19 October 20261 minute read

Writing NSW and Varuna, the National Writers' House, have named Miranda Michalowski the 2026 Writing NSW Varuna Fellow for her project Bad Art.

The fellowship goes each year to a Writing NSW member whose work is ready for its next stage and gives the winner time at Varuna in Katoomba. Michalowski plans to use it to develop Bad Art as her debut novel. More than 80 entries across fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama were judged blind.

The judges were writer and playwright Saman Shad, literary agent Justin Ractliffe and Writing NSW operations manager Andrew Glassop. They said the overall field was consistently strong.

Michalowski writes for page, stage and screen, often dark comedies about queer lives and messy women. Her play Macaroni and Dead Things won the 2024 Silver Gull Play Award. She is a Year of the Novel participant, was picked for the Australian Writers' Guild's 2026 First Break program and is completing an MFA in Dramatic Writing at NIDA.

Annette Chennell (The Social Tundra) and Hilary Bell (Tricky) were runners-up and each receive a year of Writing NSW membership.

Original source: Writing NSW ↗

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