Local Eyensbury writer Amy Montague has made history as a decorated author after bringing home third place in the 2025 Furphy Literary Award, one of Australia’s major national short story prizes.
Montague’s short story, All the Moments I Still Live In, follows Maria, an elderly Maltese-Australian woman drifting between fragments of memory and present reality as dementia erodes the borders of her life, who Montague explains was inspiured by real elements taken from her own life.
“She’s an amalgamation of different people in my life, my Aunty Francis who passed away in an aged-care home here in Melton during COVID. My Uncle Charlie who succumbed to dementia when I was still only in high school, and others here and there whose passing left a mark on me,” she said.
Montague said the short story was the first of her pieces set squarely in the western suburbs, using ideas and experiences from her growing up in the area to shape the story which brought home the impressive Furphy third place.
“I’ve lived here my whole life, but writing has usually been my escape hatch, the thing that let me imagine myself somewhere else; New York, London, cities with sunlit skylines instead of weed-lined freeways. So setting something here cracked something open in me,” she said.
“There were details I’d never really tried to tap into before. Sounds, smells, all the little things you can’t fake when you’ve never lived in the place you’re trying to describe. The west gave me a firmer grip on realism and made my work feel lived-in.”
Montague’s experience as a writer growing up in the western suburbs also inspired her to start The Writer’s Nest – an Eyensbury-based writer’s group focused on community, creativity and accessible craft workshops.
“Access to books, programs, mentors, even just having the time and space to write, those aren’t givens for everyone…once I’d written a few manuscripts, I realised the gap wasn’t talent or discipline, it was community,” Montague said.
“…If even one writer finds their confidence, finishes a story, enters a competition, signs with an agent, or self-publishes because of the support they found in that room, then I’ll count it as a win, a proper roaring success.”
Montague said the experience has inspired her to pour more time and energy into growing her community of writers even further, with ambitions of a West Writing Festival of her own.
“’I’m pouring a lot of myself into getting Eynesbury Press off the ground. The Writer’s Nest is already growing, and I’d love to publish our first anthology within the next twelve months,” she said.
“And possibly one day, my “Mt Everest” goal is to set up a Writers of the West Writing Festival complete with its own Short Story Competition, and who knows, maybe I’ll even get to be a judge.”
Montague’s short story All the Moments I Still Live In, will be published in the Furphy Anthology launching on Thursday 20 November.
To find out more about the Writer’s Nest, visit https://www.eynesburypress.com.au/.
