YouWriteOn Book of the Year Awards 2008

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We very much appreciate everyone's involvement, and we wish everyone the best of luck with their writing in 2008.
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Each month throughout 2008 the Top 5 writers in the YouWriteOn Top Ten will continue to get a free professional critique from our literary professionals, who include editors for leading literary agents and publishers, including Curtis Brown, Orion and Bloomsbury. Please see our About Us page for more details.

The judges and the awards process for the adult fiction awards

For the adult fiction awards, the judges commented: "So many stories on the adult fiction longlist demonstrated real story-telling ability and clear publishing potential and it was a very difficult choice. This is why we have recognised stories from the longlist that didn't make the final Top Three as 'YouWriteOn Book of the Year Awards Runners-Up' this year, to acknowledge that all the stories longlisted demonstrated real talent and potential. However, we came to a final decision on the three winning adult fiction extracts which we considered were of an exceptionally high standard, it was very difficult to chose between these stories.  We considered Third place story Penguins in Amsterdam to be another excellent novel excerpt from Patricia J. DeLois. Patricia is the author of Bufflehead Sisters, one of our first Book of the Year Award Winners in 2007, which went on to be named the number one novel of 2007 by readers and librarians ahead of a former Pulitizer prize winner by the leading newspaper in the writer's hometown of Maine, with its one million plus population. The judges thought Penguins in Amsterdam was an equally compelling narrative and will also achieve mainstream success. Second Place Winner A Penny on the Tracks by Barbara Galvin, this story of a dystopian future really bowled the judges over with its narrative. Senior Orion Editor Sara O'Keeffe commented in her professional critique of the story, "from the opening line, I was completely gripped by your sample chapters". The judges shared these sentiments. We believe Barbara will find well deserved publishing success. After much consideration, we were compelled to made a decision on the winner. Smoke Portrait by Trilby Kent emerged as the worthy overall winner, and its writer has already had interest expressed in her story's opening chapters from leading agencies, including from an agent from the Christopher Little Literary Agency, JK Rowling's agent, and the Annette Green Agency, who represent the million-selling The Princess Diary series. Smoke Portrait has been one of the most consistently highly rated stories we have seen in its genre on YouWriteOn. Its professional reviewer Martyn Bedford commented in his critique, 'Plenty of novels-in-progress have a great premise or idea and plenty of novels-in-progress show strong writing ability, but relatively few combine both. On the evidence of these three chapters, yours does.' YouWriteOn is very pleased to recognise these stories for our adult fiction Book of the Year Awards and to find such a range of talented writers for our 2008 awards in the YouWriteOn BestSellers Chart.

The judges and the awards process for the children's fiction awards The YouWriteOn Children's Book of the Year similarly provided the judges with some excellent stories to read. The judges commented on their decision: 'As with the adult fiction awards, this was a difficult decision, with much to commend in all the long listed stories for the children's book awards. As with the adult fiction awards, this is why we have recognised stories from the longlist that didn't make the final Top Three as 'YouWriteOn Children's Book of the Year Awards Runners-Up' this year, to acknowledge that all the stories demonstrated real talent and potential. Progressing to the Top Three stories, Third Place Edwain Gorty's The Scream Park was a hit with readers and the story's professional reviewer alike. Curtis Brown editor Gillian Stern commented of the story that she was delighted a piece of writing she was critiquing "made me laugh! I thoroughly enjoyed reading your sample chapters and actually found myself calling to my children to come and hear extracts as I was reading. They loved it too!" A well deserved winner to distract an expert literary professional like Gillian Stern from her critiquing duties! We also found second place story Get Santa by David Wardale an eminently readable and highly entertaining story, perfectly set-up by its author's synopsis ... You'd better watch out - Santa Claus is coming to town, hell bent on destruction, theft and dirty deeds with goat pooh. Schoolboy Alfie Man is forced to crack the crimes. But he unearths a conspiracy involving Santa's companions, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Should Alfie really be trying to get Santa?  David's story threw a whole range of new light on the Christmas experience. Overall, the judges considered Tiger-Mouse by Wai Lan Mo as the worthy overall winner in the children's category. The story is told with a consistently fluent, engaging and highly readable prose style while also setting up a compelling story. The writer captures what it is to be young - no mean feat - and the simple synopsis of the story sets out the writers stall .. Kitty Kwan, a 9 year old outcast with frizzy hair and bad teeth discovers that her dreams are starting to come true. Convinced she has inherited a supernatural power, she sets out to become the hero she always wanted to be ...   this innocent synopsis suddenly finds sharp contrast when you read the story's opening sentence. Read it and see. Many congratulations to all the winners.

As with the adult fiction awards, we also recognise 5 writers as our YouWriteOn Children's Book of the Year Award Runners-Up this year. It would be unwise of us to do anything else, particularly when one of our first Book of the Year Award longlist finalists in 2007, Doug Jackson with The Emperor's Elephant, achieved a six figure book deal with Transworld. Everyone will have their opinion on the best stories on YouWriteOn, and this recognises the diversity and potential of all the stories in contention for each of the awards. Each of these stories make for appealing and compelling reading and we highly recommend reading them and all the stories in the BestSellers Chart and Top Ten Charts. View Children's Fiction Runners-Up and their stories

YouWriteOn Short Story Anthology Awards 2008

There have been so many excellent short short stories that entered the YouWriteOn BestSellers Chart up to and including January 2008 that we felt we couldn't miss any out for the anthology. We look forward to publishing all of the stories in the anthology for those writers stories that haven't already been snapped up in other short story competitions.