The YA Book Prize: our new partnership with The Bookseller

Today Edinburgh International Book Festival announces a new partnership with The Bookseller around the YA Book Prize, the first prize in the UK and Ireland to specifically focus on fiction for young adults.

Launched in 2014, the YA Book Prize celebrates great books for young adults and aims to get more teens reading books. Previous winners of the Prize include Sarah Crossan, Patrice Lawrence and Juno Dawson, and last year the phenomenally talented Alice Oseman was declared the winner for her novel Loveless, a story about a romance-obsessed teenager who realises that she is aromantic and asexual.

We’re delighted to be partnering with The Bookseller, which runs the Prize, on a programme of events featuring YA Book Prize shortlisted authors in this year’s Book Festival line-up, announced in June. We’ll also be hosting a special event to announce the winner, who will receive a prize of £2000, during the Book Festival on Thursday 25 August.

Our Children and Schools Programme Director, Rachel Fox, said: “We are very excited to be working with The Bookseller on the YA Book Prize, which celebrates great books for young adults as we are always keen to connect with this audience and champion the talented authors who write such brilliant books for them. The Book Festival has been strongly supportive of YA writers for a number of years, and the partnership with The Bookseller is an excellent way to further strengthen our commitment to them and their teen readers going forward.”

Deputy Features Editor at The Bookseller and Chair of the YA Book Prize, Caroline Carpenter, said “Edinburgh International Book Festival is one of the world’s leading literary events and we are looking forward to working with the team there on the YA Book Prize. As the prize enters its eighth year, this partnership will allow us to reach new audiences and grow its impact, making it bigger and better than ever."

The 2022 Book Prize is open to YA fiction titles published in print form in the UK or Ireland between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2021 and the author must have been living in the UK or Ireland for at least six months prior to publication. The shortlist of 10 titles will be selected by a team at The Bookseller and the winner will be selected by a panel of expert and teenage judges. Submissions open on Monday 7 February 2022 via yabookprize.com and close on Friday 25 March. The Shortlist will be announced in June and the winner will be announced during the Book Festival in August.