Will Kostakis | |
---|---|
Born | William Kostakis |
Occupation | Novelist |
Education | Newington College Sydney University |
Notable works | The First Third; We Could Be Something |
Notable awards | Sydney Morning Herald Young Writer of the Year (2005); Inky Awards (2014) |
Website | |
www |
William Kostakis is an Australian author and journalist. He is known mainly for young adult fiction, and his 2023 novel We Could Be Something won the 2024 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction.
William Kostakis attended Newington College in Stanmore, Sydney.[ citation needed ] In high school, he won the 2005 Sydney Morning Herald Young Writer of the Year prize for a short story called 'Bing Me', and went on to sign his first book deal in his final year of high school.[ citation needed ]
He attended Sydney University.[ citation needed ]
Kostakis scored his first publishing contract at 17, while still completing his final year of high school, [1] Newington College. [2] He began work on a variant of Loathing Lola when he was 11 years old, and continued to refine it. [3]
Loathing Lola, his first novel for young adults, was released in August 2008. [4] The novel was a critical success, dubbed a "kickass debut", "a smart, sharp tale about fame, love and loss" by Dolly magazine, [5] "brilliant" by The Examiner , [6] "a promising debut from a young and talented Australian writer" by Danielle Trabsky at Australian Book Review , "polished" and "extremely funny" by Mike Shuttleworth at the State Library of Victoria, [7] and received many other positive reviews. [8] [9] [10]
Kostakis' second novel, The First Third won the 2014 Inky Awards, and was shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year: Older Readers and Prime Minister's Literary Awards. [11] His novel The Sidekicks, published in 2016, was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards.
We Could Be Something won the 2024 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction. [12] It was also shortlisted in 2024 for the Victorian Premier's Prize for Writing for Young Adults [13] and the Young Adult Book Award, Queensland Literary Awards. [14]
On 1 July 2020 Kostakis became a mentor of Express Media's newly renamed Hachette Australia Prize for Young Writers and, along with Hachette head of children's publishing Jeanmarie Morosin, joined the judging panel for the prize. [15]
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2016, the award is valued at A$60,000.
Timothy John Winton is an Australian writer. He has written novels, children's books, non-fiction books, and short stories. In 1997, he was named a Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia, and has won the Miles Franklin Award four times.
Alexander McPhee Miller is an Australian novelist. Miller is twice winner of the Miles Franklin Award, in 1993 for The Ancestor Game and in 2003 for Journey to the Stone Country. He won the overall award for the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for The Ancestor Game in 1993. He is twice winner of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize for Conditions of Faith in 2001 and for Lovesong in 2011. In recognition of his impressive body of work and in particular for his novel Autumn Laing he was awarded the Melbourne Prize for Literature in 2012.
Carmelina Marchetta is an Australian writer and teacher. Marchetta is best known as the author of teen novels, Looking for Alibrandi, Saving Francesca and On the Jellicoe Road. She has twice been awarded the CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers, in 1993 and 2004. For Jellicoe Road she won the 2009 Michael L. Printz Award from the American Library Association, recognizing the year's best book for young adults.
Express Media, formerly Express Australia, is an Australian literary youth arts organisation. It supports young writers and arts managers, and is the publisher of the national quarterly print magazine Voiceworks.
Steven Carroll is an Australian novelist. He was born in Melbourne, Victoria and studied at La Trobe University. He has taught English at secondary school level, and drama at RMIT. He has been Drama Critic for The Sunday Age newspaper in Melbourne.
Barry Jonsberg is an Australian author and teacher who was born in Liverpool. He earned two degrees in English and Psychology from Liverpool University and was a college lecturer in Crewe, Cheshire before moving to Australia in 1999.
Lili Wilkinson is an Australian author. She has also written for several publications, including The Age, and managed insideadog.com.au, a website for teenagers about books, as part of her role at the Centre For Youth Literature at the State Library of Victoria until January 2011.
Tara June Winch is an Australian writer. She is the 2020 winner of the Miles Franklin Award for her book The Yield.
Craig Silvey is an Australian novelist. Silvey has twice been named one of the Best Young Australian Novelists by The Sydney Morning Herald and has been shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His 2009 second novel was selected by the American Library Association as Best Fiction for Young Adults in their 2012 list, and was made into the movie Jasper Jones in 2017.
Pamela Freeman is an Australian author of books for both adults and children. Most of her work is fantasy but she has also written mystery stories, science fiction, family dramas and non-fiction. Her first adult series, the Castings Trilogy is published globally by Orbit Books. She is best known in Australia for the junior novel Victor’s Quest and an associated series, the Floramonde books, and for The Black Dress: Mary MacKillop’s Early Years, which won the NSW Premier's History Prize in 2006.
Alice Pung is an Australian writer, editor and lawyer. Her books include the memoirs Unpolished Gem (2006), Her Father's Daughter (2011) and the novel Laurinda (2014).
Jasper Jones is a 2009 novel by Australian writer Craig Silvey. It has won and been shortlisted for several major awards including being shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. The novel was selected by the American Library Association as 'Best Fiction for Young Adults' in their 2012 list.
Heather Rose is an Australian author born in Hobart, Tasmania. She is best known for her novels The Museum of Modern Love, which won the 2017 Stella Prize and the Christina Stead Prize, and Bruny (2019), which won Best General Fiction in the 2020 Australian Book Industry Awards. Rose's most recent book is the memoir Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here. She has also worked in advertising, business, and the arts.
Steven Amsterdam is an American writer. He lives in Melbourne, Australia, where he also works as a palliative care nurse.
Cath Crowley is a young adult fiction author based in Melbourne, Australia. She has been shortlisted and received numerous literary awards including the 2011 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction for her novel Graffiti Moon and, in 2017, the Griffith University Young Adult Book Award at the Queensland Literary Awards for Words in Deep Blue.
Michael Mohammed Ahmad is an Australian novelist, teacher and community arts worker.
Gabrielle Wang is an Australian writer and illustrator for children and young adults based in Melbourne. Her writing career spans 20 years and has produced more than 20 books.
Zana Fraillon is an Australian writer of fiction for children and young adults based in Melbourne, Australia. Fraillon is known for allowing young readers to examine human rights abuses within fiction and in 2017 she won an Amnesty CILIP Honour for her book The Bone Sparrow which highlights the plight of the Rohingya people. The Bone Sparrow has been translated to stage and is set to premier in the York Theatre Royal, England, from 25 February 2022.
Shivaun Plozza is an Australian author of books for children and young adults. She also works as an editor, manuscript assessor and illustrator.