Readings Prizes Manager Bronte Coates shares an update on the Readings Prizes in 2020.

The impact of Covid-19 at Readings has been significant, including the closure of our physical shops.

Since their inception in 2014, Readings has run three annual literary prizes that support emerging Australian authors: the Readings Children’s Book Prize, the Readings Young Adult Book Prize and the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction.

In a bid to keep our 2020 prizes sustainable, we’ve had to make some changes to how they are run this year.

Here is what we want you to know…

• We will be delaying the announcement of this year’s winner of the Readings Children’s Book Prize until July. In the meantime, we hope readers will continue to discover all six books on our fantastic shortlist.
  
  
• The announcement of the 2020 Readings Young Adult Book Prize shortlist will still be revealed in late May, and we are brainstorming ways to get people involved online.
  
  
• We are not able to offer prize money for our prizes in 2020. This is a regrettable decision as we know how valuable this element of the prize is for emerging writers. We still plan to make a lot of noise about the writers we profile and we hope that many, many readers will find their way to these exciting new voices.
  
  
• Amie Kaufman and Alice Robinson – our two guest judges for the Readings Young Adult Book Prize and the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction – have generously agreed to continue on as judges without payment. If you want to support them, we encourage you to pick up one of their books: Robinson’s The Glad Shout is at once a pacey disaster thriller and a powerful examination of motherhood, and Kaufman is about to launch Aurora Burning, part two of the addictive Aurora Cycle (co-written with Jay Kristoff).

Thank you to all the customers who have supported these prizes (and the emerging writers that have featured on the shortlists) over the years. We are happy to be able to continue this endeavour this year, even if in a limited capacity.