2014 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards
January 28, 2014
Last night the recipients of this year’s Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards were announced.
The Prize for Writing for Young Adults - judged by our own Anna Burkey, Hilary Harper and Alice Pung - was narrowed down to a list of outstanding finalists:
- My Life as an Alphabet - Barry Jonsberg (Allen & Unwin)
- Friday Brown - Vikki Wakefield (Text Publishing)
- Wildlife - Fiona Wood (Pan Macmillan)
And the winner was…
Barry Jonsberg’s My Life as an Alphabet!
This isn’t just about me. It’s also about the other people in my life - my mother, my father, my dead sister Sky, my penpal Denille, Rich Uncle Brian, Earth-Pig Fish and Douglas Benson From Another Dimension. These are people [with the exception of Earth-Pig Fish, who is a fish] who have shaped me, made me what I am. I cannot recount my life without recounting elements of theirs. This is a big task, but I am confident I am up to it.
Introducing Candice Phee: twelve years old, hilariously honest and a little … odd. But she has a big heart, the very best of intentions and an unwavering determination to ensure everyone is happy. So she sets about trying to ‘fix’ all the problems of all the people [and pets] in her life.
Barry has had a phenomenal run of late winning the 2013 Gold Inky Award and the Older readers category of the 2013 Children’s Peace Literature Awards.
Congratulations to Barry and his fellow finalists on a cracking display of Australian young adult literature!