Finalists in the Griffith Fellowship of Australian Writer's competition have been announced

The 'Free Spirits' competition began last year, asking writers across the region to submit short stories or poetry about their experiences with mental health in a bid to increase awareness and raise money for Headspace Griffith and Wellways.

Group president Emily Fishenden said that the response had been a pleasant surprise.

"Honestly, we had an overwhelming amount of support for it, we got entries all the way from here to Wagga. As it currently stands, we've raised over 500 dollars for headspace and Wellways," she explained.

Finalists for the categories have all been notified that they placed, but don't yet know which of them have taken out the top spot. The list of nominees is below.

Lauren Forner, a finalist for the short story category, said that it was an honour to be seen.

"Prizes aren't the reason that we write, but they're always a nice surprise ... it's really an honour to ever have my writing recognised, and it's even more important to have it recognised by your own community," she said.

"Any chance to tell your story, get involved in your local arts scene and support growing awareness of mental health is a chance that everyone should capitalise on."

Henry Parsons, who finalised in the primary school category, said he was excited, especially to do this well in his first writing competition.

"I'm psyched. Just cause I've never really done this before," he said.

"I was quite surprised, cause it was a bit different to what I'm used to writing. I'm used to fantasy or comedy stuff. This was a bit more serious."

All entries have been compiled into an anthology, and winners of the categories will be announced at the anthologies launch event.

"At the launch, we're going to have the anthology for sale, the people who place will have the opportunity to read their entries out and we'll have a rep from headspace to talk," Ms Fishenden explained.

Looking to the rest of this year, Ms Fishenden and the group are planning a followup to the competition and are hoping to be even more active.

"We've got another competition coming up to the middle of the year that we'll announce over the next few months, we've got some authors visiting for a panel event ... we're really hoping the competition will get bigger and better."

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