Evelyn Araluen up for Stella

Evelyn Araluen is back on the Stella Prize shortlist with a poetry book, four years after winning the same prize for her first collection, *Dropbear*, in 2022. This time the shortlisted book is *The Rot*, one of six finalists for the 2026 award, with the winner due on 13 May 2026. (stella.org.au) That repeat appearance stands out because the Stella Prize shortlist usually mixes novels, memoirs, and nonfiction, and poetry often gets less room in big commercial prize cycles. The 2026 list puts *The Rot* beside books by Geraldine Brooks, Miranda Darling, Lee Lai, Marika Sosnowski, and Tasma Walton. (stella.org.au) The Stella Prize is one of Australia’s biggest book awards for women and non-binary writers, and the winner receives 60,000 Australian dollars. In 2026, shortlisted writers also receive 5,000 Australian dollars each, which turns the shortlist itself into a meaningful boost for a book’s sales and visibility. (stella.org.au) Araluen’s publisher, University of Queensland Press, describes her as a Goorie and Koori poet, editor, and researcher who was raised on Dharug Country in Western Sydney and now lives on Wurundjeri Country. She also works as a lecturer at the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development and co-edits *Overland Literary Journal*. (uqp.com.au) *The Rot* is her second poetry collection, published by University of Queensland Press in 2025. The publisher describes the book as moving through sleepless nights, broken alliances, and destructive coping habits, with poems charged by anger rather than softened into consolation. (uqp.com.au) The shortlist suggests judges were looking for range rather than one dominant genre. The official Stella list includes two novels, two nonfiction books, one graphic novel, and Araluen’s poetry collection, which gives poetry a place in the center of the field instead of the margins. (stella.org.au) There is also a recent awards pattern behind this nomination. *The Rot* has already been collecting attention in the 2026 prize season, and industry coverage of the Stella shortlist notes that Araluen’s book arrived there after strong recognition elsewhere. (booksandpublishing.com.au) So the story is not just that one poet made another shortlist. It is that Evelyn Araluen now has a second Stella run with a second poetry collection, and in a prize field crowded with fiction and memoir, *The Rot* is being treated as one of the books to beat. (stella.org.au)