Young writer’s national win

MOTIVATED by social and environmental injustice, young Tasmanian writer Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn has won a national award for her journalistic work The Invisible Sea.

The 21-year-old from Hobart said she was surprised to win the 2018 Scribe Nonfiction Prize for Young Writers.

Ms Douglas-Kinghorn said she worked for six months researching and writing for the prize.

“I was at uni at the time so I had to put my study on the back burner.

“I basically sat in my room and did lots of interviews.”

Ms Douglas-Kinghorn submitted an 8000-word piece of investigative journalism inspired by Australian author Anna Krien. She said the work was about climate change, loss and hope.

Scribe publisher Henry Rosenbloom said The Invisible Sea was a “marvellous example of empathetic investigative journalism”.

“Wide-ranging and well informed, it deals with the alarming effects of global warming and the coal seam gas industry on Australia’s invisible sea — the Great Artesian Basin,” he said.

Ms Douglas-Kinghorn said farmers and indigenous communities in the Northern Territory relied on the Great Artesian Basin for water.

She heard about the issue while volunteering with the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. “People who are least responsible for climate change often suffer the effects most,” she said.

Ms Douglas-Kinghorn was selected from a shortlist of nine writers and will receive $3000 and a mentorship from Scribe to develop her work.

She plans to donate $2000 of the prizemoney to the Seeds Indigenous Youth Climate Network and use the remaining $1000 to visit the Northern Territory to keep talking about the issue.