15/05/2026
Congratulations Amanda Solly! WInner of the inaugural Macclesfield Literary Festival Short Story Prize. Ozone Hotel Kangaroo Island
Fire Girl takes home inaugural short story prize
Goolwa writer Amanda Solly has described taking out the Macclesfield Literary Festival’s inaugural Short Story Prize with her piece Fire Girl as her “most exciting winning piece”.
by Deirdre Graham, The Southern Argus, 14-5-2026
Goolwa artist Amanda Solly has taken home the Macclesfield Literary Festival’s Short Story Prize. Photo: Matt Delany
Goolwa writer Amanda Solly has described taking out the Macclesfield Literary Festival’s inaugural Short Story Prize with her piece Fire Girl as her “most exciting winning piece”.
Winners of both the adult and youth competitions were announced on Saturday at the festival.
In the adult section writers were asked to enter a short story of 500 words, that referenced Kangaroo Island and the Ozone Hotel, with the award in recognition of Robert Koehne, author of Killer Island.
The criteria led Ms Solly to researching Ozone Hotel and the history of the area, learning the hotel was gutted and burnt not long after it was built, which was where her theme of fire started.
“The other key inspiration, I go to the Goolwa Community Centre to a writing group called Budding Writers and the teacher there often gives us a theme to write about, and one week the theme was fire,” Ms Solly said.
“When everyone went around the table and read their pieces about fire, everyone wrote something really personal, it was about their dad lighting the incinerator, or it was about camping for the first time.
“So, I thought, right, that hotel burnt down, but there was a really personal reason behind it, and that led to Fire Girl, and again the hotel was built towards the end of what would have been the sealing and whaling era, so conditions for women in particular and children in that time in history weren’t great.
“So, I thought, this is going to be a ‘P*d’ off woman that burns this place down.
“I thought about, what if she worked in the kitchen or worked in the laundry or what if there was fire before that, and so it really follows her from her childhood of sitting around pots of whale blubber and her first job at the eucalyptus farm which was an early industry on KI, so it is historically relevant and accurate, but purely fiction.”
While Ms Solly was excited by the win, she also welcomed learning about Macclesfield’s Moonglow Publishing.
“The reality for small time writers is that we are not going to be picked up by Penguin or by Harper Collins, as everything is so global now with the internet, it is very hard to be seen, so to discover a local publisher that is also strongly advocating for youth writing…. That was almost more exciting than the win,” she said.
As part of her prize Ms Solly will spend three nights at Ozone Hotel with complimentary drinks and a cooked breakfast each day.
The top four stories and more will be published in the Moonglow Anthology Vol I ‘OZONE: Fire Girl and Other Stories, with the Ozone Hotel pre-ordering 100 copies.
“They have a lot of international visitors, so that will be an opportunity for local Fleurieu and Hills writers to have their work seen on a bit of an international stage,” Ms Solly added.
MACCLESFIELD LITERARY FESTIVAL SHORT STORY WINNERS
First – Fire Girl by Amanda Solly
Second – Kindred Spirit by Kristin Murdock
Third – Game Over by Kelly Clarke
Special prize – Island Time by Josephine Humphrey
YOUTH WRITERS PRIZE
First – Leap by Tamika Retallack
Second – The Way She Lived by Sachini Wimalarathna
Special prize – The Diary Book by Lucia Gray, and The Mystery Flower by Sandali Wimalarathna.
Goolwa writer Amanda Solly has described taking out the Macclesfield Literary Festival’s inaugural Short Story Prize with her piece Fire Girl as her “most exciting winning piece”.
