Hall wins Charlotte Waring Barton Award for an unpublished children’s author

Danika Hall has won the 2016 Charlotte Waring Barton Award, presented annually by the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) NSW branch to an unpublished NSW author of children’s or YA fiction.

Hall’s winning manuscript ‘The Trophy Family Challenge’, aimed at middle-primary-aged children, ‘is written from the perspective of Caterina who has the misfortune to be part of an overachieving family’. ‘A keenly observed and witty insider in the world of the trophy obsessed, Cat is battling to eek out her own identity.’

HarperCollins publisher Lisa Berryman, one of the judges of this year’s award, said Hall’s manuscript was ‘child focused, fun, straight forward in storytelling and very relatable to the audience’.

As the winner of the Charlotte Waring Barton Award, Hall will participate in the CBCA NSW’s annual Aspiring Writers Mentorship Program for unpublished children’s authors, which includes the opportunity to sit in on two three-hour sessions with a published author and three one-hour sessions with a publisher, editor and marketing communications manager at HarperCollins.

This is the first year that HarperCollins has partnered with the CBCA NSW on the mentorship program. For more information about the program, click here.

Category: Junior Local news