Araluen’s poetry collection has won the Stella. Image Stuart Spence. Courtesy UQP.
First Nations poet Evelyn Araluen is the winner of the 2022 Stella Prize with her debut collection, Dropbear. The announcement marks a decade since the inaugural Stella Prize was awarded for excellence in Australian women’s and non-binary writing.
Araluen’s win is all the more potent because this is the first year that poetry has been eligible for submission in the Stella Award.
The 2022 Stella Prize judges: Melissa Lucashenko, Declan Fry, Cate Kennedy, Sisonke Msimang, and Oliver Reeson described Dropbearas:
Thuy On is the Reviews and Literary Editor of ArtsHub and an arts journalist, critic and poet who’s written for a range of publications including The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Sydney Review of Books, The Australian, The Age/SMH and Australian Book Review. She was the Books Editor of The Big Issue for 8 years and a former Melbourne theatre critic correspondent for The Australian.
She has three collections of poetry published by the University of Western Australian Press (UWAP): Turbulence (2020), Decadence (2022) and Essence (2025).
Threads: @thuy_on123 Instagram: poemsbythuy
