“I was on semester break and I saw the[Brisbane Times] competition,and so I started writing on my iPad while waiting for my mum to get her hair coloured,” said Guse.
The Bulimba-based student has netted the inaugural Brisbane Times Essay Prize in the category for writers aged 14 to 18.
Her essay imagines a Brisbane of free and fast public transport,four-day working weeks,no fossil fuels and no homelessness.
“Sabrina Guse’sDreaming envisions a future Brisbane that is optimistic,but warns against complacency and inaction,” said competition judge,novelist Ellen van Neerven.
“I feel like climate change is always seen in a negative light in the media but we need to have solutions to read about as well,” said Guse,who is studying a double degree in Environmental Science and Journalism.
Meanwhile,a journalism graduate from QUT,Gabriella Marcelline,22,has won first prize in the category for writers aged 19 to 24.
Good Immigrants Are Grateful:The Evolution of My Cultural Identity concerns Marcelline’s heritage as a first-generation Sri Lankan-Australian woman.
“The sentiment ‘good immigrants are grateful’ is something I had heard at one point,and it spawned an emotional reaction that I thought could be used in my writing,” said Marcelline,an Albion-based freelance writer.
Van Neerven praised Marcelline’s essay as an engaging reflection on growing up in Brisbane as the child of immigrant parents.
“The author persuasively encourages us not to abandon ‘what makes us different’,” van Neerven said.
Both Marcelline and Guse will have their essays published by this masthead and collect a $1000 prize courtesy of Dymocks.
They will receive 12-month subscriptions toBrisbane Times and an invitation to contribute additional opinion pieces to the publication.
The two runners-up in the 14-18-year-old category are Levi Gao and Charlotte van Voorst.Gao wrote a tribute to Brisbane’s bus drivers,while van Voorst wrote about the prejudice encountered by people diagnosed with tic disorders.
In the 19-24-year-old category,runners-up were Claire Moman (writing about living with a gendered illness) and Sabina Mansilla-Riding (with a call for a nuanced approach to links between music and youth depression).
The runners-up will each receive $500 and a 12-month digital subscription toBrisbane Times.
Brisbane Times Essay Prize 2023
14-18-year-old category
19-24-year-old category