The original Joseph Furphy Commemorative Literary Prize was established in 1993 with a Goulburn Valley focus.
It was relaunched last year as a national short story award with a $15,000 first prize, making it the richest short story prize in Australia.
Melbourne-based writer Ruby Todd won the open category for her short story entry Awakening.
The piece described tumultuous events in a woman’s life, brought to a head by the HMAS Melbourne-Voyager disaster.
In addition to the $15,000 haul, Ms Todd has won a residency program at La Trobe University and future publication in a forthcoming anthology.
Two other works were highly commended by the judging panel in the open category, whichreceived a total of 850 entries from across Australia and overseas.
Pub Raffle by Gippsland-based author Ya Reeves was a thoughtful piece describing events in a small community in Eastern Victoria during the recent bushfires.
While Ando Gets Plastered by Castlemaine-based Cate Kennedy was a "delightful" story of a bucks night gone wrong and sweet revenge.
“It is fantastic to have received these very well-written Australian stories from a variety ofviewpoints,” Furphy Literary Award director Sam Furphy said.
“With such a large field of entries from all over the country and some from overseas, the winning and shortlisted works really are a joy to read.”
The revamped award continues the 26-year-old story and poetry categories for junior and youth writers, which now have a combined prize pool of $1350.
More than 230 entries were judged from young people in the Goulburn Valley.
Out of 56 entrants, Goulburn Valley Grammar School (GVGS) student Elly Meichel won first prize in the Youth Short Story category with her entry titled An Atlantic Night.
In second place was Notre Dame College’s Sophie Campisi with A Perfect Coincidence, while Layla O’Callaghan of GVGS took third place with To Love a Faery.
“Reading these stories has been a thrilling ride,” Youth Short Story judge John Lewis said.
“There is nothing so wild and dangerous as the teenage imagination.
“Now I'm going to have a lie down and think about normal things like pandemics and lockdowns.”
A total of 57 entries were received in the Youth Poetry category, with first prize won by Miya Smith with her poem Persimmons.
Ben Shelton, also from GVGS, came in second with Colours of a Lakeside Life and Layla O’Callaghan was third with The Flavours of Demurity.
The Junior Short Story had 115 entries, with first prize awarded to Lila Plunkett of GVGS for her work titled Off Track.
Second place went to Alice Bourchier of GVGS for Fortune Favours the Bold and third place went to Riley Wooster of Shepparton East Primary School for The Miner's Hat.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this year's awards were held online, with the event livestreamed on Saturday night.
●To read the winning stories, head to furphystory.com.au/furphy-literary-award/the-awards
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