Content warning: Boasting, award porn, self-congratulations. I became the 2023 recipient of the Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer at the Queensland Literary Awards on 6 September, for my manuscript ‘First Name Second Name’. As a winner of the award, which was sponsored by Jenny Summerson through the Queensland Library Foundation, my manuscript will now be published by UQP Books. I don’t know when. Probably 2024. Now I go into editing mode. Before that, I’d like to acknowledge Michael Mohammed Ahmad for his mentorship on my manuscript and the Qld Writers Centre and Brisbane Writing Crew for the community they provided while I wrote it. I’d also like to acknowledge my Chinese and Scottish families who provide me with a lot of inspiration. And finally I’d like to thank my partner, Jonny Ng for his thousand watt smile. I don’t know what powers that thing but I hope it’s renewable.

Here’s what the judges said about my entry:

Steve MinOn’s ambitious and inventive novel follows four generations of a Scottish–Chinese family through turbulent experiences of migration and cultural integration. Culminating in Stephen Bolin, its memorable protagonist, embarking upon an unlikely journey home to Far North Queensland, “First Name Second Name” takes themes of racial, familial and sexual identity and explores them in an entirely original way.

Glendower Award Judges