Thrilled to announce that author Grace Chan is the winner of the 2025 Paragraph Fellowship! Announced last night at Emerging Writers Festival in Melbourne.

The Paragraph Fellowship is an annual grant of $25,000 for an emerging or early career writer of literary fiction. Time To Write was established to support emerging and early career writers through the commercial reality they face, enabling them to spend more time writing.

Grace Chan won it for her novel-in-progress Caretakers — here’s the blurb;

Moth Leong is a caretaker for humans-in-hibernation on board a migration ship on a decades-long journey. She discovers a strange message written in a code known only to herself and her eight-year-old son, Tide. However, she has no memory of writing the message— and Tide is in hibernation on a different ship. Unsettled, Moth is drawn into memories of her previous life on Earth. With the help of the ship’s mycologist, Fern, Moth deciphers the code to find a camera recording of herself falling off the spaceship. As further revelations unfold, Moth must grapple with the discovery that her life is not truly hers.

And here’s what The Paragraph Fellowship judges had to say:

‘Grace Chan represents the best of contemporary Australian speculative fiction – thoughtful, ambitious, and deeply attuned to the emotional and philosophical questions that define us. Her impressive debut novel, Every Version of You explored what it means to be human in a world where physical and digital selves can diverge. Her new manuscript, Caretakers, builds on the strengths of that work. There are mighty questions here: how we imagine, remember and forget; how – and who – we love. Once again, Chan uses the genre’s possibilities with precision and imagination, creating a world that feels both expansive and intimate. We’re delighted to support Grace as she continues to grow into her craft.’

Congratulations, Grace – and to all those shortlisted!