From the Rosie Committee, Standing Committee on Awards and Prizes (SCAP)
Editors have the opportunity every 2 years to nominate or be nominated for the Rosanne Fitzgibbon Editorial Award (the Rosie). This award recognises editorial excellence in memory of editor Rosanne Fitzgibbon DE (1947–2012), a literary editor who worked for 40 years in the publishing of fiction and nonfiction, including 16 years as fiction editor at University of Queensland Press. Rosanne worked in collaboration with many of Australia’s well-known authors, including Thea Astley, Peter Carey, Kate Grenville and Janette Turner Hospital.
The winner of the 2025 Rosie, Emma Rafferty from Hachette Australia said it was “an incredible honour to be awarded the Rosie for my work on JP Pomare’s 17 years later,” after accepting her award at the 2025 IPEd conference in Adelaide.
To read about Emma follow these links: Emma Rafferty, 2025 Rosie Award winner, on putting the spotlight on editors and Emma Rafferty wins 2025 Rosie Award.
Cathy Vallance, the 2023 winner of the Rosie, works as a senior editor at University of Queensland Press (UQP) where, as Cathy said, Rosanne is part of the mythos of UQP and all the editors there aim to live up to Rosanne’s reputation of providing exceptional editorial guidance and author care. Cathy felt very honoured to win the award in Rosanne’s name. She acknowledged in her winner’s video that talking up your work as an editor doesn’t come naturally, and she gratefully received help to “jazz up” her nomination. Cathy thanked author Zana Fraillon for “coming into the edit with an open, playful and collaborative spirit”.
The Rosie winner of 2021, Johannes Jakob, said the award was a huge honour and he enjoyed working with author Kyle Perry, who was “high energy in the best way. I was able to feed off that and his dedication to his craft made it a fun and easy process.” Johannes also said, “The editor’s task is to try to go unnoticed, so I happily and rapidly retreat to the shadows but thank you so much.”
In 2019, the Rosie was awarded to Julia Carlomagno. “It is validating to have an award that acknowledges editors, and the value that editors bring to a work,” remarked Julia.
There is clearly a theme emerging of this award being not only a great honour for the recipients themselves but also a celebration of the work of editors, those who stay quietly and supportively in the background, who are integral to making a good piece of writing great.
For your chance to be recognised, or to recognise one of your editors for outstanding work in any genre of editing, don’t miss the chance to register a nomination. Work that has been published between 22 October 2024 and 21 October 2026 will be considered. More information is available on the Awards page of the IPEd website. Full details on eligibility, judging criteria and what you need to include in your nomination are available in the 2027 nomination guidelines.
Nominations are open until Monday 21 October 2026.