18 August 2026 – The AWGIE Awards recognise and reward the outstanding achievements of Australian performance writers and their contribution to Australian culture and the arts. Entries are open for eligible screen, stage, interactive and audio works that finished principal photography or production or had a first performance between 1 January 2025 and 31 December 2025 (please check individual categories…
Continue reading11 August 2026 – The Australian Writers’ Guild is pleased to announce the 11 screenwriters who have been selected to participate in First Break VIC online, a unique professional development program designed to give talented, aspiring screenwriters a leg up in the industry through practical training in note-taking and script coordinating. Delivered with support from VicScreen, the three-day online…
Continue readingTo celebrate the upcoming release of My Brilliant Career and the legacy of pioneering author Miles Franklin, Netflix ANZ, in partnership with the Australian Writers’ Guild and Australia’s eight State and Territory Screen Agencies, is today launching ‘The Next Brilliant Career’. The initiative invites emerging Australian writers who identify as women or non-binary to submit original, authentically-Australian…
Continue readingIt is with great sadness that the Guild writes of the recent passing of writer, director, author, industry advocate, and a long-time active Victorian AWG member, Mark Poole. Mark filled many Guild roles over some four decades, including Victorian Committee member; Victorian Chair; Victorian rep on the then Management Committee; Victorian Vice-President on the NEC; and…
Continue readingRecent advice published by the ATO and Creative Workplaces reinforces that writers who are engaged by production companies to write scripts are entitled to superannuationunder the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 (Cth) (the Act). The ATO states that if you have been paid to provide a service that is required for a performance to occur, including plays or entertainment, then you are considered…
Continue readingWednesday 15 July 2026 – The Australian Writers’ Guild (AWG) and Authorship Collecting Society Australia Aotearoa (ACSAA) welcome today’s speech from Prime Minister Albanese re-affirming the Government’s position that Australia’s creators, and the laws that support us, are a key part of our nation’s future. A new Office of AI and Australian Standards can build on the…
Continue readingFriday 3 July 2026 – The Australian Writers’ Guild is aware of a number of generative artificial intelligence (AI) script coverage services claiming to offer fast feedback and analysis of scripts for a fee. These services do not employ script assessors. Seeking feedback on a script is a necessary and valuable part of the writing process….
Continue readingEight outstanding scripts by 14 writers have been selected from over 200 entries in the 2026 John Hinde Award. In the Unproduced category, two television pilots and two feature films have been shortlisted, while in Produced, episodes of NCIS: Sydney and Zip and the Tiny Sprouts compete with feature film Cooee and short film Self Love. The winners will be announced at an industry event in…
Continue readingTwelve exciting new projects by 14 emerging writers have been shortlisted for the Australian Writers’ Guild’s 2026 Emerging Writers’ Awards. Included on the shortlist are two stage plays, multiple television pilots, feature films and a short film from some of Australia’s best up-and-coming writing talent, selected from over 500 entries. The winning writers in both categories will be announced at…
Continue readingAs part of the AWG’s ongoing work on Artificial Intelligence (AI), we’re looking into how much of our members’ work may have been used to train AI data sets. To assist us in this work, we encourage members to take a look at this tool published by The Atlantic, and search the LibGen data set to see if your works appear…
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