Canberra GP Susannah Begbie has won the 2022 Richell Prize for emerging writers of fiction

The inner-north doctor was this week named the winner of the 2022 Richell Prize, presented by Hachette Australia and the Emerging Writers' Festival.

She receives $10,000 from Hachette Australia and a year's mentoring with one of its publishers. The award was established to foster new talent, in memory of Hachette Australia's then-chief executive officer Matt Richell, who died while surfing in Sydney in 2014.

The award has also led to Dr Begbie being signed to a literary agent with hopes her novel, When Trees Fall Without Warning, will eventually be published.

She was "honoured and amazed" to win the award.

"It can feel as though the walls of your study are the only audience your writing will get," she said.

"The Richell Prize is a gift, firstly, because it gets the writing out of the study and into the world."

Dr Begbie grew up on a sheep farm between Bungendore and Captains Flat. She went to school at Campbell High and Dickson College and studied medicine at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

She previously worked at the Garema Place Surgery and Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health and Community Services in Narrabundah and now focuses on skin cancer at a clinic in Phillip, also heading out to remote areas across the nation as a locum.

"I work part-time and I write part-time," she said.

The Richell Prize attracted 700 manuscripts from writers around Australia.

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Dr Begbie's winning unpublished novel, When Trees Fall Without Warning, is about a dysfunctional family set against a rural background. Bitter farmer Tom dies and changes his will so that his four children must stay on the farm and build his coffin, together, within five working days of his death. If they don't, they receive zero inheritance.

Hachette Australia group publishing director Fiona Hazard was impressed by the quality of the work.

"This narrative is such a clever twist on exploring the lengths people will go when it comes to money, and the family dynamics that propel the story left all the judges wanting to read more," she said.

Dr Begbie said the novel was definitely not inspired by real life.

"I'm happy to say it is all fictional. The characters are all fictional. I've not ever had anyone else pose this task to my knowledge," she said.

"It's a story about family. Everyone's got one. We do our best, but they are complex relationships to have. And when you throw in death and money and a coffin, it can get interesting."

She got a taste for writing while working as a locum in Ireland and wrote a blog about her experiences. She later studied writing at the University of Canberra and it is now as much a part of her life as medicine.

"I think I love writing because it's different," she said. "Because it's not analytical. There's not a right or wrong answer. And it's just fun.

"Well, it's not always fun. There are times that it's quite excruciating. But, overall, it is fun."

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Dr Begbie is single without children and says that gives her the freedom to be a locum, recently doing stints in Tasmania and north-west NSW, as well as the ability to write whenever she wants.

"It gives me time and space and quiet and all the things that make it possible for me to write," she said.

Right now, she is enjoying the best of both worlds, as doctor and writer. And finding her own audience.

"I write for the pleasure of it and it's exciting that other people are enjoying reading the results," she said.