Stella Prize

Stella Day Out is a free one-day literary festival that celebrates and promotes the outstanding contributions of women and non-binary writers to Australian literature. Mandy Beaumont, author of The Furies, speaks to Jayne Tuttle about the strong female characters in her novels. Mandy Beaumont is an award-winning writer and a researcher in creative writing. Her debut novel The Furies was long-listed for the Stella Prize and shortlisted for the MUD Literary Prize as well as the Queensland Literary Awards Fiction Book of the Year. Her collection of short stories, Wild, Fearless Chests, was shortlisted for the Richell Prize and the Dorothy Hewett Award. Stories from the collection also won the MOTH International Short Story Prize and were shortlisted for other notable awards. She was a convenor in creative writing and communications at Griffith University for over a decade, and holds a PhD and a Research Masters in creative writing. She is also a regular feature writer and book reviewer for The Big Issue. Her new true crime inspired novel, The Thrill of It, will be out in March 2025. Jayne Tuttle is a writer, performer and bookseller. Her first book, Paris or Die, was published in 2020 and her second, My Sweet Guillotine, in 2022. A third, to complete the Paris trilogy, is set for publication in 2025. She has written for The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, and other international outlets. In 2023, Jayne was sponsored by the Ville de Paris to adapt and perform the play for an international audience. She has also received fellowships from the La Napoule Art Foundation and Bundanon Trust, and is a long-term artist-in-residence at the Centre les Récollets in Paris. In 2021, she was awarded the Varuna Eric Dark Flagship Fellowship. Jayne co-owns The Bookshop at Queenscliff.