The University of Technology, Sydney's commitment to developing Australian writing talent has been cemented with the launch of the UTS Centre for New Writing during the recent Sydney Writers' Festival.

In an environment that includes postgraduate students of the calibre of Anna Funder (Stasiland) and James Bradley (Wrack), the centre has been established to promote and support research into new forms of writing.

Centre Director and Program Coordinator of Writing and Cultural Studies in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dr John Dale, said the centre would act as an incubator of ideas for creative writing practices and research.

"We want to create a culture that draws researchers, writers and research degree students to the centre," said Dale, whose own credits include the bestselling Huckstepp.

"In the process we will create new synergies with government, industry and community bodies in writing, editing and publishing.

"The centre will also foster new writing from different cultures and develop external relationships with overseas writers and institutions."

Already a UTS Award for New Writing has been added to the annual NSW Premier's Literary Awards, announced on 23 May. The winner of the inaugural UTS award, with a cash prize of $5000, was Denise Young for The Last Ride, a story about the relationship between a father and son set in far western NSW.

UTS academic Gillian Cowlishaw won the $10,000 Gleebooks Prize for her book Blackfellas, Whitefellas and the Hidden Injuries of Race.

Meanwhile, the latest fruit of the UTS writing program has also been launched as part of the Sydney Writers' Festival.

The 2005 UTS anthology, nine tenths below, showcases a fresh batch of brilliant writing in the form of short stories, excerpts from novels, fictocriticism and poetry.

The 28-piece collection mixes up the absurd, the exquisite, the glancing, the in-depth, the harsh and the gentle. You can take a road trip, ride a train through London, sail across the Atlantic, experience ten thousand lanterns in Japan, fly underwater and finally say goodbye to your German lover with no return address.

UTS writing lecturer and novelist Dr Catherine Cole will officiate at a second launch event for the anthology at Gleebooks in the Sydney suburb of Glebe on Thursday 9 June.