The ECU undergraduate writing prize began its admirably long run in 1970, taking its current form as the Talus Prize in 1972. So, the prize has two birthdays! The name ‘Talus’ was given to the prize by its founder and long-term benefactor, renowned Australian poet Professor Glen Phillips.
The word ‘Talus’ has two meanings, but the prize took its name from the geological formation, which is a sloping pile of rocks at the base of a cliff or leading up to a wall. This may be a metaphor for the avalanche of talent which has sprung from the ECU writing program in the ensuing half-century or it may be an ironic reference to detritus.
The first prize was awarded to the late Greg Osborn for his poem ‘Mother’s Day at Karrakatta’, in 1970 which was subsequently published in Westerly in October that year and reissued in Sandgropers: A Western Australian Anthology, edited by Dorothy Hewett (1973, UWA Publishing). The poet continued to publish over the next decade.
The competition has sustained its vigour and run annually since then and has encouraged numerous undergraduate students to pursue their writing, many of whom have gone on to literary careers and leadership roles in the Australian writing world.
