Paragraph Fellowship 2025
2025 Winner
We are thrilled to announce the Winner the 2025 Paragraph Fellowship. You can download the media release from the following link:
Grace Chan for Caretakers
Grace Chan is an award-winning speculative fiction writer. She writes about brains, minds, and space. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, Every Version of You, is about staying in love after mind-uploading into virtual reality. It won the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards People’s Choice Award and was shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year. It was longlisted for the Stella Prize and the Indie Book Awards. It has been optioned for a film adaptation. Her short fiction has been published widely. Grace was born in Malaysia and lives in Melbourne. In her other life, she works as a psychiatrist.
“The Paragraph Fellowship will make an unparalleled, life-changing difference to my ability to complete Caretakers. Winning this prize now allows me to take dedicated time off from my paid employment and devote this time to writing my novel. It's also an incredible vote of confidence for a writer struggling to complete her second novel in the midst of the many demands of life. The Fellowship has saved this manuscript from being shelved.”
Caretakers
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.
‘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.’
2025 Judging Panel
Beejay Silcox, John Kinsella, Elfie Shiosaki