ABOUT KT MAJOR
Born and raised in Singapore before moving to Sydney in 2013, KT Major’s creative work has won awards in Australia and overseas.
KT’s true love is fiction, which started at age twelve when she won a national story writing competition. In Australia, KT’s stories have won several accolades, including the 2025 Louie Award, Australia’s fast fiction crime writing award, for her story ‘Bitter’. She also won first place in the ZineWest 2026 writing competition, the Everymind Award in Grieve 2024, Resident’s Prize for Short Story in the 2023 Sutherland Shire Literary Competition, and the 2022 Peter Cowan 600 Short Story Competition in the novice category.
Notable long- and shortlists include the top 30 for the SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition in 2022, being shortlisted for the Scarlet Stiletto Award in 2023, and longlisted for the Furphy Literary Award in 2024.
KT Major was awarded the 2024 Westwords-Varuna Emerging Writers’ Residency at Varuna National Writers’ House to develop her novel DARK OPERA. She was highly commended for the 2026 Varuna Residential Fellowships for the same novel.
Her thriller novel, PERIL, was longlisted for the 2026 Richell Prize - top 24 out of 1022 submissions.
Her work is published in several anthologies and magazines, including The Big Issue, Splinter, Verandah, Written Off, Emergence by SBS, Grieve, BAD Western Sydney, Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal, ZineWest, and The Ancestral Searcher. Her poetry work ‘INT RUS IVE’ was exhibited at Firstdraft Gallery in Sydney in 2025.
She is an alum of the Westwords Academy 2023. Other Academy alumni include AWGIE-winning screenwriter Ally Burnham and award-winning poet Paris Rosemont. KT conducts writing workshops and masterclasses with WestWords.
She studied communications, drama and performance at Nanyang Technological University. KT lives in Dharawal Country, Sydney with her husband, son, and overactive kelpie. She writes when everyone is finally asleep.
KT is working on a crime novel that mixes genres and incorporates her experiences from Asia and Australia. KT Major is represented by Rebecca Slater of a4 Literary.
I WRITE …
CRIME & THRILLERS
Murder, mayhem, and stories that make you change all your locks. Often humorous, dark, and unexpected.
Literary fiction
Stories about our diverse, heartbreaking, and sometimes absurd world.
ESSAYS and Memoirs
Asian-Australian perspectives, social commentary, social justice, environmental issues, lived experiences and intergenerational trauma
Awards & Recognitions
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First place, ZineWest 2026 writing competition, for ‘Untold’
Winner, 2025 Louie Award, for ‘Bitter’
Everymind Award for 'Paper Guitar', The Grieve Project 2024, Hunter Writers' Centre
Shire Resident’s Prize for Short Story 'Out of the Woodwork', Sutherland Shire Literary Competition 2023
Winner, Peter Cowan 600 Short Story Competition 2022, Novice Category, for ‘Drying Out’
Editors’ Award, ZineWest 2025, for ‘Potage/Patronage’
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Top 30, SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition 2022
Top 5%, Round 3, NYC Midnight Global Short Story Competition 2023
Longlisted for ‘The Big Issue: Fiction Edition' 2023
Shortlisted for the Scarlet Stiletto Award 2023
Longlisted for the Furphy Literary Award 2024
Shortlisted for the EM Fletcher Writing Award 2024
Shortlisted for the Heroines Writing Prize 2025
Longlisted for the Richell Prize 2026
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‘Drying Out’, Peter Cowan 600 Short Story Competition eMagazine, 2022
‘The Likeness of Sammy’, Grieve anthology, Hunter Writers Centre 2022
‘Hot Goods’, BAD Western Sydney anthology 2022, WestWords
‘No Fish Porridge for a Metal Ox’, Emergence by SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition anthology, Aug 2023
‘Dad’s Day’, The Big Issue ed. #694, Sep 2023
Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal, issue 35, Nov 2023
‘Out of the woodwork’, Sutherland Shire Literary Competition 2023 Anthology
'Westwards', BAD Western Sydney: The Second Case, WestWords, September 2024
'By the hand of Ali Silver', Verandah Literary and Art Journal, Volume 39, October 2024
'Blue Jeans and Pop Music', ZineWest 2024, October 2024
'Paper Guitar,' The Grieve Project 2024 anthology, Hunter Writers' Centre, October 2024
‘Schrodinger’s Migrant’, Splinter Issue 1, November 2024
‘Nothing to Forgive’, The Ancestral Searcher, a journal by Family History ACT, December 2024. Also published in Every Family has a Story, July 2025.
‘Bitter’, winner of the 2025 Louie Award, on the Australian Crime Writers Association website
‘Island of the Old Shahbandar’, in Written Off #4, September 2025
‘Potage/Patronage’, in ZineWest, September 2025
‘A Split in the Cane’, in Bravewords Podcast, 2026
‘By the hand of Ali SIlver’, in Heroines Anthology Vol. 6, August 2026
‘Untold’, in ZineWest 2026, September 2026
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Accepted into the 2023 WestWords Academy for emerging writers
Judge, Living Stories 2023-2026 competitions
Judge, Blacktown Mayoral Writing Competition 2023
Speaker, Rose Scott Women Writers’ Festival 2023
Panellist, Crime Writers’ Panel, BAD Western Sydney anthology launch, Wollondilly Library, 2023
Speaker, Bravewords: True stories told well, Gosford, Feb 2024. Oct 2024, Feb 2026
Recipient of the 2024 Westwords-Varuna Emerging Writers' Residency
Poetry work ‘INT RUS IVE’ exhibited at Firstdraft Gallery in Sydney, 2025
Performer, All Lit Up! at Parramatta’s Lit, part of Sydney Fringe Festival 2025