Storylines is delighted to announce Allen & Unwin New Zealand as the new sponsor of the Storylines Tessa Duder Award for an original young adult novel manuscript.

Christine Young, Storylines Trust Chair, says Storylines is thrilled that a publisher with the strength and success of Allen & Unwin NZ, particularly with its growing list of local authors, is backing this award. “Allen & Unwin has had a fantastically successful publishing year, winning Publisher of the Year, Marketing and Publicity Strategy of the Year, and the New Zealand Bestseller Award at the Book Industry Awards in July and the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults in August. We are pleased and proud to work with Allen & Unwin on this award, which recognises an author writing for New Zealand teenagers, and ensures the publication of a high quality book for YA readers.”

Jenny Hellen, Publishing Director at Allen & Unwin New Zealand comments, “Allen & Unwin is delighted to be the new sponsor of the Storylines Tessa Duder Award for YA fiction. We’re very much looking forward to reading the entries and hopeful of finding some strong new stories and voices in this important genre.”

There are changes to entry too with the criteria now extended to include graphic novels.

All entries will now be submitted and assessed electronically so there is no need to submit hard copies.

We look forward to receiving even more entries this year, with such an exciting new sponsor, so remember the closing deadline for the 2024 award is 31 October 2023.

Check further details of this prestigious biennial award and the former winners here https://www.storylines.org.nz/award/storylines-tessa-duder-award/

The winner of the prize of $1500 plus assurance of publication will be announced at the 2024 Storylines Margaret Mahy National Awards Day.