Wednesday 21 January 2026 – An impressive field of Australian screen and stage writers have been recognised as nominees for the 58th Annual AWGIE Awards, to be presented by the Australian Writers’ Guild next month in Sydney. Over 70 new works by Australian writers for stage, screen, audio and interactive are nominated, highlighting the breadth and talent of our writing community here and overseas.
Academy Award-nominee Tony McNamara’s black comedy The Roses will compete in the Feature Film Adapted category alongside Peter Duncan’s The Correspondent and Craig Alexander’s Snatchers. Five films will compete in the Feature Original category, including Michael Shanks’ body horror hit Together, up against films by Alice Foulcher and Gregory Erdstein (One More Shot), Natalie Erika James (Saccharine), Harvey Zielinski (Sweet Milk Lake), and Jesse Laurie (Zero).
The final seasons of Bump and The Newsreader are recognised in Television Series with nominations for Kelsey Munro and Christine Bartlett respectively, up against episodes of Black Snow (Lucas Taylor), Good Cop/Bad Cop (Clare Sladden), and Invisible Boys(Allan Clarke).
Showrunner Samantha Strauss dominates the Television Limited Series category, with nominations for Apple Cider Vinegar (Samantha Strauss, Angela Betzien and Anya Beyersdorf) and The Last Anniversary (Samantha Strauss, Giula Sandler, Sarah L Walker and Greg Waters) competing with Plum (Brendan Cowell and Fiona Seres) and The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Shaun Grant).
Turning to our stages, the musical adaptation of My Brilliant Career by Sheridan Harbridge, Dean Bryant and Mathew Frank will compete with new Australian musical The Questions by Van Badham and Richard Wise.
A strong year for theatre sees five nominations in the Stage Original category, with works by Xavier Hazard (All Boys), Anchuli Felicia King (American Signs), Angus Cerini (Into the Shimmering World), Noëlle Janaczewska (The Past is a Wild Party) and Melanie Tait (The Queen’s Nanny) in contention. Van Badham picks up a second nomination in the Stage Adapted category for A Fool in Love, alongside The Magic Hour by Vanessa Bates.
Works by comedians Brownyn Kuss (Pillows xxxx) and Nazeem Hussain (Totally Normal) will compete in the new Comedy Stand-Up category, and in Comedy – Situation or Narrative, episodes of Austin (Adam Zwar), Colin From Accounts (Patrick Brammall), Fisk (Penny Flanagan with Kitty Flanagan), Strife (Sarah Scheller) and Urvi Went to an All Girls School (Urvi Majumdar and Nina Oyama) are nominated.
AWGIE Award winners will be announced at the 58th Annual AWGIE Awardson Thursday 19 February 2026 at the Parade Theatre, NIDA in Sydney. For those outside Sydney, a broadcast of the event will be free to watch from home via live stream.
Awards will be presented across 22 categories, including feature film, television, documentary, theatre, interactive and gaming, audio, stand-up comedy, animation and children’s television.
Individual theatre category winners will be eligible for the David Williamson Prize for Excellence in Writing for Australian Theatre, the richest playwriting prize in the country. Made possible by the generous donation of David and Kristin Williamson and Shane and Cathryn Brennan, the $140,000 prize is awarded to the most outstanding script selected from the winners of each of the theatre categories at the AWGIE Awards with the express purpose of encouraging theatre companies to commission, develop and program a new Australian work.
Since 1968 the Australian Writers’ Guild has presented the AWGIE Awards to recognise and reward the talents, triumphs and unique contributions of Australian screen and stage writers to the Australian arts. The AWGIE Awards are the only Australian writers’ awards judged solely by writers, based on the written script – the writer’s intention rather than the finished product.
Find the full list of nominees for the 58th Annual AWGIE Awards here.
