2026 Recipient of the UQP Quentin Bryce Award
UQP is pleased to announce that the 2026 recipient of the UQP Quentin Bryce Award is Lenny Robinson’s debut novel, And in the Morning.
This award, which recognises The Honourable Dame Quentin Bryce, is for a book on UQP’s list each year that celebrates women’s lives and/or promotes gender equality. Lenny Robinson receives $5000 in prize money.
Of selecting And in the Morning from UQP’s 2026 list, Dame Quentin Bryce says:
‘Lenny Robinson’s novel is the perfect book for me to select as the 2026 UQP Quentin Bryce Award recipient as it marries two subjects that have been such a major focus of my public life: the role of our armed services (including women in the military), and recognition of – and better protection for – women’s wide-ranging contributions to society.
Lenny’s book movingly and gracefully considers how a series of wars that involved Australia have impacted women’s lives: as mothers, partners, daughters, and as those who took on official roles in the forces. A gloriously written, intricate and thought-provoking work of historical fiction.’
On winning the UQP Quentin Bryce Award Lenny Robinson says:
‘And in the Morning is a novel that celebrates the courage and fortitude of Australian women. I am humbled that it has been chosen as the recipient of the 2026 UQP Quentin Bryce award by Dame Quentin Bryce who, over the course of her extraordinary career, has worked tirelessly to improve the lives of women. Her selection of my novel is an unexpected privilege and a true honour.’
About And in the Morning
In the winter of 1919, Lily and her three-year-old son, Ted, rush through the streets of Melbourne to welcome home Lily’s husband, Bert, who has spent the last four years fighting with the Light Horse in the Middle East. Twenty-three years later, as the same city awaits a Japanese invasion, Frankie, a young servicewoman on a night’s leave, meets an airman, Ed, at a dance. Almost three decades on, as Melbourne convulses with anti-war protests, a single mother, Fran, prepares a funeral for her only son, a young conscript killed in Vietnam.
And in the Morning is a novel about war and the ways in which its tragedies, both great and small, transform the intimate lives of the mothers, wives and lovers who must live with its consequences.
‘A hauntingly beautiful novel of women and war. An exceptional debut.’ Heather Rose
‘Delicate, nuanced, And in the Morning is a beautiful and unexpected novel.’ Sophie Cunningham
About Lenny Robinson
Lenny Robinson has worked as a tutor, university lecturer, freelance writer and teacher. Her short stories and non-fiction have appeared in Overland, Westerly, Island and The Best Australian Essays. She is the author of This Moral Pandemonium (2009), a short biography of notorious 19th-century figure Madame Brussels, and several philosophy textbooks. Lenny lives with her partner and children in Naarm, Victoria.
About the UQP Quentin Bryce Award
The award recognises The Honourable Dame Quentin Bryce, who is an alumna of The University of Queensland and was the first woman appointed as a faculty member of its Law School. From 2003 to 2008 she served as the twenty-fourth Governor of Queensland, and from 2008 to 2014 she was the twenty-fifth Governor General of Australia, the first woman to hold the office. Throughout her career Quentin Bryce has been a strong supporter of the arts and Australia’s cultural life, and she is an ambassador for many related organisations, including the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and the Stella Prize.
To honour Quentin Bryce’s impressive career and legacy, University of Queensland Press established the UQP Quentin Bryce Award in 2020. The award recognises one book on UQP’s list each year that celebrates women’s lives and/or promotes gender equality. There is $5000 in prize money for the selected author.
The inaugural recipient of the award in 2020 was Ellen van Neerven’s poetry collection Throat, which went on to be recognised in multiple prizes, including winning Book of the Year at the 2021 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. In 2021 the award went to Sarah Walker’s exceptional collection of essays, The First Time I Thought I Was Dying, with its examination of our unruly bodies and minds, and the limitations of consent, intimacy and control. In 2022 the recipient was Mirandi Riwoe’s dazzling story collection, The Burnished Sun, with is focus on women, especially those who are marginalised and disenfranchised, while in 2023 it was Angela O’Keeffe’s The Sitter, which reimagines the life of Hortense Cezanne while intricately examining the tension between artist and subject, and between the stories told about us and the stories we choose to tell. The Sitter went on to win the 2024 NSW Premier’s Literary Award for fiction.
In 2024 Dame Quentin Bryce selected Jazz Money’s superb poetry collection mark the dawn for the award. In 2025 Rachel Morton’s acclaimed debut, The Sun Was Electric Light, was chosen for this award. The winner of the 2024 VPLA Unpublished Manuscript Award, The Sun Was Electric Light went on to be shortlisted for the 2026 VPLA Fiction category.
For more information, please contact Jean Smith, Marketing & Publicity Manager, at UQP, on jean.smith@uqp.com.au.
