Text Prize 2016 shortlist announced

The shortlist for the 2016 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing has been announced.

The shortlisted authors and their manuscripts are:

• Sarah Bainbridge for ‘Eternal’, ‘an atmospheric and original novel’ about Maia and her mother, who, following Maia’s father’s death, ‘take a break from their road trip in Eternal, a town founded to memorialise the dead’.
• Claire Christian for ‘Waste’, a story of ‘grief, getting out of your own way and finding your tribe’. It follows Ava, ‘lost and angry at the world, trying to figure out how to live without her best friend by her side’.
• James Cooper for ‘Never Let Go’, a ‘visceral, compelling and thought-provoking novel’ about Zac, who is ‘visiting his estranged father, for the first time in years, during a hostile Alaskan winter’.
• Fiona Hardy for ‘Rosebud’, ‘a sweet, funny, smart story for readers on the cusp of adolescence’, in which Hayley Whelan decides to make a horror movie in the summer holidays with her friends.
• Louise Truscott for ‘Black Spot’, a ‘gripping, page-turning thriller’ that follows Livia Black, who ‘six years ago lost her memory in the car crash that killed her mother’, and has ‘lived in isolation on a farm, with a father she doesn’t remember, ever since’.

More information on the shortlisted manuscripts and authors is available here.

The winner of this year’s prize will be announced at an event in Melbourne on 10 May. Text received 297 entries for this year’s prize, up from 268 last year, and the second-most entries ever.

The Text Prize for an unpublished manuscript by an Australian or New Zealand writer is now in its ninth year. The winner receives a publishing contract with Text and a $10,000 advance against royalties. Last year’s winner was Kimberley Starr for ‘The Book of Whispers’.

Category: Junior Local news