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 her first year dipping into Australia’s literary scene, KT won the 2022 Peter Cowan 600 Short Story Competition in the novice category, and placed in the top 30 for the SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition. In 2023, she won the Shire Resident’s Prize for Short Story in the Sutherland Shire Literary Competition and was shortlisted for the Scarlet Stiletto Award. She won the Everymind Award in the Grieve Project 2024 and was also longlisted for the Furphy Literary Award 2024.

In 2024, KT Major was awarded the Westwords-Varuna Emerging Writers’ Residency to develop her novel ‘Dark Opera’. KT attended a six-day residency at Varuna National Writers’ House with industry mentors.

Most recently, KT Major won the 2025 Louie Award, a competition for fast crime fiction writing, for her story ‘Bitter’.

KT’s work is published in several anthologies and magazines, including Grieve 2022 & 2024, both volumes of BAD Western Sydney, The Big Issue, Eucalypt: A Tanka Journal, Emergence by SBS & Hardie Grant, ZineWest 2024, Splinter, and Verandah.

KT is an alum of the Westwords Academy 2023. Other Academy alumni include AWGIE-winning screenwriter Ally Burnham and award-winning poet Paris Rosemont.

KT was a judge in the 2023 and 2024 WestWords Living Stories and Blacktown Mayoral Writing Competitions. She made her festival debut as a speaker at the Rose Scott Women Writer’s Festival 2023.

She studied communications, drama and performance at the world-class 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.

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

  • 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’

  • 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

  • ‘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

    ‘Bitter’, winner of the 2025 Louie Award, on the Australian Crime Writers Association website

  • Accepted into the 2023 WestWords Academy for emerging writers

    Judge, Living Stories 2023 and 2024 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 and Oct 2024

    Recipient of the 2024 Westwords-Varuna Emerging Writers' Residency

With Thanks To

SBS