ESU Youth Writing Contest 2025 - Winner

The English-Speaking Union (Victoria Branch) is pleased to announce the winner of the Youth Writing Contest 2025 for a piece of writing responding to the question: Where can we find the pioneering spirit that built Australia in today's world? The winning essay, selected by final judge Margaret Connolly, is "Youthful Australia and the Pioneer Spirit" by South Australian writer Konstantin Kanelleas. Taking his epigraph from German Romantic poet Holderlin ("The heart’s wave would not foam up so beautifully and become spirit, if the ancient, mute rock, Fate, did not stand opposed to it"), Konstantin writes deeply and thoughtfully about the need to identify those who carry the pioneer spirit even today.

"To find these leaders, we must possess insight acute enough to spot specks of gold in plains of dust. We must search for the searchers. Australia was found and founded by searchers, men who knew how to look."

Konstantin receives a prize of $2,000 and will took up a week-long Residency at ESU House in the first week of March 2026.

Congratulations to Konstantin! You can read his award-winning essay, "Youthful Australia and the Pioneer Spirit" here.