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HGE announces 2017 Ampersand Prize shortlist

Hardie Grant Egmont (HGE) has announced the shortlist for its 2017 Ampersand Prize for unpublished YA and middle-grade authors.

The six shortlisted authors and their works are:

  • Lincoln Law for his YA novel ‘A Crown of Blood’, about a ‘Groundformer in training, who is forced to choose between mastering his magical abilities and rescuing her best friend from a bloodthirsty army’.
  • Rebecca Colless for her YA speculative-fiction novel ‘The Demon Bells’, about a young woman who has been marked as Blessed, and her choice between her sacred duty and her love for a boy who is Cursed.
  • Cameron Macintosh for his YA novel ‘The Ascension of Saint Jay’, an ‘unromantic comedy’ about an atheist teenager who joins a revenge plot at his new Catholic high school.
  • Louise Bassett for her YA novel ‘What We Say in the Dark’, in which ‘former bad girl’ Cassie is drawn into an amateur criminal investigation.
  • Jackie Randall for her historical middle-grade novel ‘Go See in the Night’, which is set in ‘medieval London’s dark underworld, where greed and corruption threaten to unravel 12-year-old Ashel Stukely’s family’.
  • Lisa Siberry for her middle-grade novel ‘Gloop’, about a science geek secretly making ‘weird and wonderful beauty products from the mysterious plants in her neighbour’s garden’.

HGE publisher Marisa Pintado described this year’s shortlist as ‘our best yet’. ‘Each and every one of these writers is ready to become an author, and we’re simply thrilled to be helping them on their way,’ said Pintado.

The shortlist was chosen from close to 160 entries. The winner of the prize, who receives a publishing contract with HGE, will be announced at midday on 21 November.

For more information, click here.

 

Category: Awards Junior Local news