Crowley, Oseman win 2017 Inky Awards

Cath Crowley and Alice Oseman have won the 2017 Inky Awards, presented by the Centre for Youth Literature at the State Library of Victoria.

Cath Crowley’s Words in Deep Blue (Pan) won the Gold Inky Award for an Australian book, along with a cash prize of $2000. The YA novel is a love story between estranged best friends set in a Melbourne secondhand bookshop.

British author Alice Oseman’s Radio Silence (HarperCollins) won the Silver Inky Award for an international book.

Readers aged between 12 and 20 voted online for the winners from shortlists chosen by a panel of teenage judges.

Crowley said she was ‘thrilled’ to win the Gold Inky. ‘To receive an award for young adult fiction as decided by young adults is an incredible honour,’ said Crowley. ‘Words in Deep Blue is about the importance of books, and the ways stories connect us—so receiving the award is wonderful proof that words matter, that stories matter.’

Now in its 11th year, the Inky Awards were founded in 2007 to recognise local and international fiction, poetry, anthologies and graphic novels written for young adults.

For more information about the Inky Awards, visit the Inside a Dog website here.

Category: Awards Junior Local news