SD HARVEY  Short Crime Story Award

​     SDHarvey Award 2025
 

2025 SD Harvey Award WINNER

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Josh Kemp for his story Night Riders.

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The judges were unanimous in their decision and had this to say about the winning entry:

​​'Evocative, lyrical crime writing at its best. Characters leap off the page with stark realism and sparse dialogue as this haunting story weaves its way through the wispy mists of the Dandenong rainforest while two people dig for human remains in the mud. Wielding a mastery of language, the carefully crafted sentences create a sense of foreboding and dread that seep and whisper, drawing you deeper into psychological territory where moral clarity blurs and hidden histories are forced into the present.'​​​​​​​​​

You can read the winning entry here:

https://www.sdharveyaward.com/about-1

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​Josh Kemp is an author of Australian gothic and crime fiction. His debut novel, Banjawarn, won the 2021 Dorothy Hewett Award and the 2022 Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction. His second novel, Jasper Cliff, was published last year and was shortlisted for the Aurealis Award for Best Horror Novel. He lives in the south west of WA.

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Runners up are:

Alyssa Mackay Murder on the Cards

Alyssa is a Brisbane-based writer who loves a good mystery and a clever plot twist. She won the 2020 Thunderbolt Prize Emerging Authors Award and has been shortlisted for the Flash 500 Novel Competition and Stringybark Stories. She was also shortlisted for the Scarlet Stiletto Awards in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

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Eva Leppard  Renegade Kitty.

 Eva is a primary school teacher living in a mudbrick house in the Tasmanian bush while dreaming of a city unit with fewer spiders and more coffee shops. Her debut novel, The Pitfalls of Being a Goddess, was published in 2023 by a small press and my second, Mother Trouble, was released October 2025. A third and fourth will follow in 2026 and 2027. I’ve also had numerous short stories published.

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Thanks to all entrants and the high calibre of entries this year.

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