The State Library of NSW (SLNSW) has announced the launch of the inaugural Russell Prize for Humour Writing to ‘celebrate, recognise and encourage humour writing, and to promote interest in this genre’.

The biennial prize, worth $10,000, is open to published works of fiction, memoir, poetry and verse by Australian writers. It is being funded ‘by the generous bequest of the late Peter Wentworth Russell, a farmer, businessman and passionate reader,’ SLNSW said in a statement. The award’s patron will be author and journalist Peter FitzSimons.