Madonna Duffy Named 2025 Winner of the Johnno Award

On Friday, 5 December UQP Director Madonna Duffy was named the 2025 winner of the Johnno Award.

Presented annually since 2001 by Queensland Writers Centre's Management Committee, the Johnno Award celebrates outstanding services to writers and writing in Queensland—particularly volunteer work and work that goes largely unrecognised by the public or the industry. This includes not only writers but teachers, arts workers, advocates and community leaders who work to promote a vibrant and diverse writing community in Queensland.

The Johnno Award is named for Queensland Writers Centre founding patron David Malouf’s debut novel and seminal Queensland story, Johnno.

Duffy described winning the award as a ‘great thrill.’

‘For a young girl who grew up on a remote cane farm in Far North Queensland reading English stories to have been able to study the work of David Malouf and other incredible Queensland writers at university and then to now be able to work with those authors as a publisher is more than I ever imagined. There is a courage, a defiance, an attitude and a vibrancy that defines Queensland writing. I’m so proud to be part of the State’s brilliant and supportive literary community,’ said Duffy.

Previous winners from the past five years:

2024 Yvette Holt – Poet/Advocate

2023 Dani Watson – Public Service

2022 Tess Rowley – Author/Advocate

2021 Andrea Baldwin – Community Service & Critical Friend

2020 Uncle Herb Wharton AM – Services to Literature and the Indigenous Community

For more information on the Johnno Award, please click here.