Celebrating the wins

Be silly, celebrate yourself, eat cake

When I told my friends at LoveOzYA that I’d been shortlisted for the Text Prize, one of the first things that they asked me was how I planned to celebrate.

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted to them. ‘I’d like to have a glass of wine, but I still have Covid.’ 

‘Surely you’re going to do more than have a glass of wine?’ they said. ‘This is a big deal!’

And they were right! It is a big deal! The Text Prize is one of the biggest awards in Australia for an unpublished YA manuscript. It’s one of those dreams that felt too big to even dream. Surely it was out of reach. I cried big happy tears when I got the news I’d been shortlisted.