By Peta Robson, Standing Committee for Awards and Prize
Editors have the opportunity every two 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 (UQP).
Rosanne worked with many of Australia’s well-known authors including Thea Astley, Peter Carey, Kate Grenville and Janette Turner Hospital.
Cathy Vallance, the 2023 winner of the Rosie, works as a senior editor at UQP where, as Cathy said, Rosanne is part of the mythos. 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 winner of the 2021 Rosie, 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.”
“The editor’s task is to try to go unnoticed, so I happily and rapidly retreat to the shadows but thank you so much,” Johannes told the awards night.
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 s 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, but 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, consider nominating for the 2025 Rosie. Nominations are open for work that has been published between 22 October 2022 and 21 October 2024.
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 2025 Nomination Guidelines.
Nominations are open until Monday 21 October 2024.