Announced at the Melbourne Writers' Festival on Saturday 30 August, the inaugural Text Young Adult Prize went to Richard Newsome for The Billionaire's Curse.

The novel will be published by Text in July next year as part of the prize, and Newsome also receives $10,000.

Three hundred entries had been received from Australia and New Zealand for the competition. Newsome said he only sent the manuscript at the last minute ‘convinced it would end up as recycled landfill or propping up a wonky desk leg in the corner of the office', but fortunately Text publisher Michael Heyward thought that The Billionaire's Curse was a ‘brilliantly original whodunit which is stylish, funny and very entertaining.' Heyward believes it will appeal to a wide spectrum of readers.

The novel is about a teenager who becomes the rich beneficiary of his deceased great aunt's estate, but the true nature of his aunt's death and a 2000-year-old mystery must also be delved into.

Newsome is a 43-year-old father of three from Brisbane, and upon winning described himself as ‘in equal parts honoured, humbled and hungover'.

Entries for the 2009 competition will open in May next year.

http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/09/09347/

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 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

Tags: young adult writing prize