Shortlisted for the Searchlight Writing for Children Awards!

I’m absolutely thrilled: I found out this month that the opening of my work-in-progress, The Boy at the Wynyates, got shortlisted in Searchlight’s Best Novel Opening for Children or Young Adults 2024!

The idea for this novel has been percolating since I was eleven years old and came across some folklore connected to a Tudor mansion near where I grew up. A spark was lit in my imagination, and—without giving anything away—I’ve been returning to that attic in my imagination ever since.

I finally began exploring the idea as a mystery novel for middle-grade or young teen readers in 2022, and my first draft was longlisted for the Mslexia Children’s and YA Novel Competition that year. I almost didn’t submit it because I knew it wasn’t really ready yet, so the fact that it got longlisted was an enormous surprise, and a gratifying indication that I was on the right track. The feedback provided by the Mslexia judges (including Cressida Cowell of How to Train Your Dragon fame, excuse me while I shamelessly fangirl for a bit!) was extremely helpful in planning my revisions, so based on that and invaluable feedback from my lovely beta readers, I’ve been developing the manuscript ever since. I’m now at the infuriatingly close-to-the-finish-line stage of making sure the ending resolves every plotline in a satisfying, non-clunky way… so the news about the Searchlight shortlist is perfectly timed to give me a boost of energy at this crucial moment!

The Searchlight Writing for Children Awards is an international competition for un-agented, unpublished writers. For the Best Novel Opening for Children or Young Adults prize, contestants submitted the first 1200 words of our novels and a 175-word pitch teasing the rest of the story, to be judged by a reading team headed by the main judge, Rachel Petty, a literary agent with The Blair Partnership. Out of hundreds of entries, The Boy at the Wynyates reached the top 10! This means that a 300-word extract, the pitch, and my biography will be published in Searchlight’s pitch book of winning stories and sent to literary agents and publishers to pique their interest!

So all that remains for me to do now is to put the finishing touches to these final chapters, and begin querying agents… So exciting!