The State Library of Victoria's Centre for Youth Literature has announced the winners of the inaugural Inky awards, Australia's first teenage choice book prize. The Golden Inky goes to Notes from the Teenage Underground (Simmone Howell, Pan Macmillan) and the Silver Inky to Looking for Alaska (John Green, HarperCollins).
Over 3000 teens vote for Inky winners
The State Library of Victoria's Centre for Youth Literature has announced the winners of the inaugural Inky awards, Australia's first teenage choice book prize. The Golden Inky goes to Notes from the Teenage Underground (Simmone Howell, Pan Macmillan) and the Silver Inky to Looking for Alaska (John Green, HarperCollins).
‘These awards reflect what teenagers want to read rather than what they are told to read,' said Lili Wilkinson, awards coordinator and manager of insideadog.com.au. The Inky Awards were created by the State Library Victoria's Centre for Youth Literature to encourage reading for pleasure amongst teenagers. There are two awards: the Golden Inky for an Australian book, and the Silver Inky for an International book. The winner of the Golden Inky will receive a trophy and $2000 in prize money. The winner of the Silver Inky will receive a trophy.
Three thousand votes were cast online and via SMS by young people around the world to decide the awards. The Inkys were awarded to the most popular books from a shortlist selected by a panel of six judges: four teenagers, Lili Wilkinson, and Ryan Paine, editor of Voiceworks magazine.
Aussie desert guidebook wins international awards
Australia's Great Desert Tracks Atlas and Guide by Ian Glover and Len Zell (Hema Maps/Wild Discovery Guides) has taken out two major awards at this year's International Map Trade Association conference, held recently on the Gold Coast.
Australia's Great Desert Tracks won both the best book-based product award and the overall grand prize, the Graham Stanton award for excellence. Hema Maps' MD Rob Boegheim said he was thrilled with the recognition: ‘A number of our reps and customers have told me this is the best product we have ever produced and it is tremendous that these industry awards reinforce this.'
Hema Maps also picked up second place in the best book-based product category for its Western Australia 4WD Atlas and Guide; second prize in the sheet map category for its Flinders Ranges map; and first place in the best computer-based product for its Australian 4WD Map Collection.
Aussie cookbooks win Cordon D'Or prizes
Two Australian cookbooks, both published by Allen & Unwin, have received Gold Ribbon prizes at the 2007 Cordon D'Or Culinary Arts awards.
Tolarno Bistro by Ian Hewitson and Bob Hart (photog by Greg Elms) was the joint winner of the illustrated cookbook category; and The Eat Well Cookbook by Jan Purser and Kathy Snowball won the weight control/diet cookbook catgegory.
For the full list of winners, click here.
White award calms angry poet
Poet David Rowbotham has been named as the recipient of this year's Patrick White award.
The award, worth $25,000, was established by Patrick White in 1974 to honour writers who ‘had not received due recognition.'
Rowbotham published his first book of poetry in 1954 and worked variously in publishing and journalism, including a stint as the literary editor of Brisbane's Courier Mail, before retiring due to poor eyesight. He told the Australian that he was ‘never part of a literary clique' and that his outsider status was never seen as a good thing by the literary establishment: ‘You're seen as a baddie.'
‘I did have some anger, and I have thought "what is the point of writing poetry?", but this [award] puts everything right,' he said.
NSW Writers' Centre genre award winners
The NSW Writers' Centre has announced the winners of its inaugural genre fiction award, supported by New Holland Publishers.
First prize went to Maria Simms for The Dead House; second prize to Rae Litting for The Kidnap of Alice McGillivray; and third prize to James Casson for Mrs Harrison's Stocking. All winners receive a publishing contract and mentorships to develop their manuscripts.
The three winners were chosen from 246 entries. ‘In the end, the winning entries were selected because they displayed simple, clean, clear writing and possessed a strong voice and original subject matter,' said judge Martin Ford, publisher at New Holland.
NSW Writers' Centre executive director Irina Dunn said: ‘It's very rewarding to discover unknown talent and to give these authors the opportunity to be published.'
Chinese author wins first Man Asia prize
Chinese author Jiang Rong has been named as the winner of the inaugural Man Asia Literary Prize for his novel Wolf Totem (Penguin).
The Man Asia prize, worth $10,000, intends to ‘achieve a profile for Asian literature,' said chair of judges Adrienne Clarkson.
Fellow judge Nicholas Jose described Wolf Totem as ‘a very original book ... on a grand scale [that] deals with large questions.' Penguin is set to release Wolf Totem worldwide in March 2008. ‘He was completely unknown, this book came completely out of left-field,' said Jo Lusby, GM of Penguin China. Jiang said he ‘spent 30 years thinking and six years writing' the book.
The other authors shortlisted for the prize were: Nu Nu Yi Inwa (Burma), Xu Xi (Hong Kong), Jose Dalisay Jr (Phillipines) and Reeti Gadekar (India).
This article from Thorpe Bowker's Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2005, Thorpe-Bowker