HarperCollins is thrilled to announce that Annette Higgs has won the Australian Fiction Prize 2026 for her unpublished manuscript The Music Teacher.

The Music Teacher is a sparkling, heartwarming and moving story set in country New South Wales, and judged the winner from over 300 manuscripts submitted this year. It will appeal to readers who love The Correspondent, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and The Secrets of the Huon Wren.

In dusty Gilgandra, 1978, the biggest scandal in years is the arrival of a baby grand piano, delivered on a truck for all to see. Olga, a Polish refugee who has lived a cosmopolitan, stylish life in Sydney has arrived with her husband Anthony, full of hope for new friends, new students and a fresh start. But her European sensibilities, her panache – and piano – mark her as different, and not everyone in town quite understands her.

Publisher Roberta Ivers said, ‘The range of manuscripts in this year’s prize was of such a high quality that it made our job so much harder, but we all fell head over heels for Annette Higgs’s The Music Teacher. I'm thrilled to be publishing this big-hearted, uplifting story about community and how we can change each other’s lives. The irrepressible Olga stole our hearts as she navigates country Gilgandra and brings the town together with music – and discovers support and community when she needs it the most. Annette Higgs has written a joyful novel, brimming with delicious wit, humour and emotion, and I know readers will fall in love with it as much as we have.’

Annette Higgs is a writer living in Sydney, Australia. Born and raised in Tasmania, she has lived, worked and studied in Sydney, London and Italy, and holds a Doctor of Arts from the University of Sydney. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her short work has appeared in literary journals and anthologies in Australia, the USA, the UK and India. Her novel On a Bright Hillside in Paradise won the Penguin Literary Prize 2022 and was published by Penguin in 2023 to critical acclaim.

The Australian Fiction Prize is an annual prize for an unpublished, book-length work of fiction. The winner receives an advance of $15,000 and publication by one of Australia’s leading publishers, HarperCollins Australia. The prize is open to all Australian writers, regardless of age or publishing history.  The 2024 winner was Katherine Johnson’s Every Wild Soul, which was published in May 2026.  Read more about it here, and about the 2025 winner, River City by Troy Henderson, which will be published in 2027, here.

Entries for the 2027 Australian Fiction Prize will open in early 2027.

Please check the FAQ page if you have questions about entering the Australian Fiction Prize. View the Terms and Conditions. If you are under 18, you must complete and attach this form.