Associate Professor Helen Ennis from the ANU School of Art has been awarded the 2012 Peter Blazey Fellowship.

The Fellowship is awarded for a work in progress in the non-fiction fields of biography, autobiography and life-writing. The judges were unanimous in their choice of Helen Ennis as the recipient of the 2012 Fellowship.

“Her proposed biography of the renowned Australian photographer Olive Cotton is an exciting project which will explore the life and work of one of few women working in the field in the early to mid-twentieth century. Her draft chapters are extremely engaging and a joy to read. The judges believe that the Fellowship will help Helen Ennis research and complete an important book that will be read and appreciated by a wide audience”.

The prize includes $15 000, and a one-month writer-in-residency at the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne. The Peter Blazey Fellowship was established to honour the memory of Peter Blazey - journalist, author and gay activist - and has been made available through the generosity of Clive Blazey and Tim Herbert, brother and partner of Peter Blazey.