Viviane Gerardu Award, 2026
The Viviane Gerardu Writing Encouragement Award commemorates Viviane Gerardu, a member of the ACTATE community who passed away in 2020. The award honours her contribution to the teaching of English in the ACT and her championing of young writers.
This intriguing story of a mummy’s contemplation on life offers a mature attempt at using Egyptian mythology as a backdrop for storytelling. The mummy, who asks himself deep philosophical questions about the significance of ‘being human’, and about respect for humanity in the archaeological world, is also intrigued by new technology: ‘A huge swarm surrounded my body and took out small rectangular blocks and a bright-afterlife-like light came out of them.’ With further editing, this story has the makings of an exceptional speculative work, and thus is a deserved choice for the Viviane Gerardu Writing Encouragement Award.
Remembering Viviane
Viviane Gerardu was an inspirational teacher who made a difference in the lives of her students and her colleagues.
Viviane presented regularly at ACTATE professional learning events and at national conferences. Teachers always left her workshops with practical strategies and interesting resources to use with their students. She developed the Language for Understanding Across the Curriculum (LUAC) resources and presented workshops to ACT teachers from all learning areas. She has also been published widely through books such as the English Quest series and articles in ACTATE’s journal, Activate.