SUBMISSIONS via link below – Deadline extended to Thursday 17th April, 1pm!

The 2025 Honi Soit Writing Competition launched at Welcome Week 2025 and invites all Sydney University students to submit an entry for a chance for your work to be recognised by leading writers and to win cash prizes.

Each year a theme is chosen for the competition by the Honi Soit editorial team and prize donor. Students are asked to submit fiction or non-fiction entries exploring the chosen theme.

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The 2025 theme is ‘Artificial’

Is the world becoming more artificial around us? Who or what can we trust anymore? Is there such a thing as “reality” anymore in the age of social media and rampant misinformation?

Artificial calls us to question what it means to be real, organic, and intelligent in our modern era. Why do we view metal hips as good for the body but microplastics as bad? Writers should look at the complexities of the artificial world bleeding into the natural, and all the ways this has helped and harmed us as people.

NON-FICTION: Pieces can be up to 1200 words, and must be of an opinion genre expressing a clear argument. Re-imagine, revisit, re-examine. We want you to convince, challenge and provoke us.

FICTION: Pieces can be up to 2000 words of prose or 40 lines of poetry. However, you are not restricted to write in these styles. Be as creative as you would like, and interpret the theme as broadly as you wish while still maintaining thematic links.

Students can submit either or both fiction and non-fiction entries

PRIZE MONEY (in each category):

First place – $2000
Second place – $700
Third place – $250
Editors’ choice – $50

JUDGES:

FICTION — 2025 

Siang Lu

Siang Lu is the author of Ghost Cities and The Whitewash, and the co-creator of The Beige Index. The Whitewash won the ABIA Audiobook of the Year in 2023 for its audio adaptation, which starred a large and diverse cast of fourteen actors. It also won the Glendower Award for an emerging writer in the Queensland Literary Awards and was shortlisted for a NSW Premiers Literary Award.

In 2023 Siang was named one of the Top 40 Under 40 Asian-Australians at the Asian Australian Leadership Awards. He holds a Master of Letters from the University of Sydney and has written for film and television for Singapore’s Beach House Pictures and Malaysia’s Astro network. He is based in Brisbane, Australia, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

NON-FICTION — 2025 

Amani Haydar

Amani Haydar is an award-winning writer, visual artist, lawyer and advocate for women’s health and safety based on Dharug land. Amani’s debut memoir The Mother Wound is the recipient of multiple accolades, including the 2022 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction. Amani is also the recipient of the 2021 UTS Faculty of Law Alumni Award, and she was named Local Woman of the Year for Bankstown at the 2020 NSW Premier’s Woman of the Year Awards in recognition of her advocacy against domestic violence. Amani is an active visual artists and former Archibald Prize finalist. You can find more about her work on Instagram: @amanihaydar

AWARD PRESENTATION EVENT – Verge Gallery, Week 11, Semester 1, 2025 – Thursday 15th May, 6pm

Winners and top-placing entries will be published in a future edition of Honi Soit and will be invited to attend the award presentation event at Verge Gallery

SUBMISSIONS – DEADLINE extended to Thursday 17th April, 1pm

Please submit your fiction or non-fiction entry (or both) via the form by 1pm on 17/4/2025