I am a 2011 Inky Awards Judge! (Part 1)

As announced in this Read Alert blog post, I have been appointed a 2011 Inky Awards judge. As you might imagine, I’m very chuffed – I get to read stacks of young adult books and talk shop about YA literature with other enthusiastic judges. For the uninitiated, I’ll provide a little background on the Inky Awards.

What are the Inky Awards?

The Inside a Dog website says: “The Inkys are international awards for teenage literature that are voted for online by the readers of insideadog.com.au.  It recognises the fantastic home grown writing talent from Australia with the Gold Inky and also titles that come from across the ocean with the Silver Inky.”

The award was first given in 2007, and this is the fifth annual award. It is run by the Centre for Youth Literature (who run the Inside a Dog website), at the State of Library of Victoria. You can view the past winners in the sidebar of this page. More detailed award guidelines are provided are also provided on the website.

In addition to the prizes for books, there’s a Creative Reading Prize. It is open to anyone and it is a creative response in any format for any book that you love (it doesn’t have to be an Inky Awards longlist book). Note, however, that the Grand prize can only be won by someone under the age of 20.

If you want to get an idea how happy the winning authors can be have a look at John Green after Looking for Alaska won the 2007 Silver Inky:

Or see this lovely one by Lucy Christopher, the author of 2010 Gold Inky winner Stolen, and who will be one of my fellow judges for the 2011 Inky Awards:

 What is happening with the 2011 Inky Awards?

Now: The Centre for Youth Literature staff have just selected the 20 books for the 2011 Inky Awards longlist. The longlist consists of 10 books by Australian writers (for the Gold Inky) and 10 books by non-Australian writers (for the Silver Inky) that fit the award guidelines.

1 September 2011: The shortlist is announced. Five books from each of the Gold and Silver Inky longlists are selected by the judging panel, and they form the shortlist. From the announcement of the shortlist, voting is open to anyone between the ages of 12 and 20. Voting will close on 18 October.

25 October 2011: The Inky Award winners and the winners of the Creative Reading Prize will be announced during a day of activities called “Inkyfest”.

So that’s a background on the Inky Awards. Later, I will talk about the judging panel and their role.