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Ampersand Prize 2020 shortlist announced

Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing (HGCP) has announced the shortlist for its 2020 Ampersand Prize for unpublished young adult and middle-grade fiction.

The five shortlisted authors and their works are:

  • Conan Elphicke for ‘Angelica’s Airship’, a middle-grade adventure about twins Tom and Charlet who are about to be expelled from their snooty boarding school when their mysterious aunt rescues them in a stolen military airship.
  • Helen Valley for ‘Tim Te-Maro and the Subterranean Heartsick Blues’, a gay YA romantic comedy set in a magical boarding school in New Zealand, about two boys who ditch their exes to team up for the annual egg-baby experiment.
  • Nicola Wardley for ‘I Can’t Even: Diary of a Fact Freak’, a middle-grade comedy that follows 12-year-old Alex, who is freaking out about starting high school until something much more interesting happens: her mother disappears.
  • Kate Murray for ‘We Who Hunt the Hollow’, a YA novel about 17-year-old monster hunter Priscilla, who discovers she has a frightening new super power—and the boy she’s falling for wants to use it to tear down the world.
  • Elizabeth James for ‘Completely Normal (and Other Lies)’, a YA novel that follows the aftermath of the death of 17-year-old Isaac Calder. When he dies suddenly, his girlfriend, best friend and the entire school is turned upside down with grief. But no-one knows that 16-year-old Stella Cash was secretly in love with Isaac—and he loved her back.

The winner of the prize receives a publishing contract with HGCP and will be announced at midday on Monday, 9 November. Sydney author Frances Chapman is the most recent recipient of the prize, for her YA novel which was published by HGCP as Stars Like Us earlier this year.

For more information, see the HGCP website.

 

Category: Awards Junior Local news