Winner

2022 PENGUIN LITERARY PRIZE:

On a Bright Hillside in Paradise

“On A Bright Hillside in Paradise is a jewel of a novel: luminous, vivid, and deftly shaped. Annette Higgs has a special capacity for drawing us into the rhythms of the Hatton family’s labours and devotions, so that we care and hope and grieve alongside them. I felt, as I read, that there was ordinary time, and there was Paradise time, and that I could have stayed forever on that bright hillside.”—Fiona McFarlane

Winner

2026 AUSTRALIAN FICTION PRIZE

The Music Teacher

Forthcoming from Harper Collins

In dusty Gilgandra, 1978, the biggest scandal in years is the arrival of a baby grand piano, delivered on a truck for all to see. Olga, a Polish refugee who has lived a cosmopolitan, stylish life in Sydney has arrived with her husband Anthony, full of hope for new friends, new students and a fresh start. But her European sensibilities, her panache – and piano – mark her as different, and not everyone in town quite understands her.

Welcome

Welcome to my author website, a place to meet me, my books and stories, plus news and events. To keep in touch check out my social media posts or my regular Substack about building a house, ironically titled How To Downsize. —Annette

Meet Annette

Annette is a writer living in Sydney, Australia. She was born and grew up in Tasmania, leaving on her 18th birthday to study literature and law at the Australian National University in Canberra. She has lived, worked and studied in Sydney, London and Italy, and holds a Masters in Creative Writing and a Doctorate of Arts from the University of Sydney.

A Pushcart nominee, her short work has appeared in literary journals and anthologies in Australia, the USA, the UK and India. Her novel On a Bright Hillside in Paradise won the 2022 Penguin Literary Prize and was published by Penguin in 2023.