An Post Irish Book Awards and another great review.
I’m honoured and delighted to have been shortlisted for Teen and Young Adult Book of the Year in the A Post Irish Book Awards. The shortlist was announced on 22 October, and the award ceremony is on 27th November, so I’ll be off to Dublin for the glitz and glamour of a night with some of the brightest and best of Ireland’s writers. There are no storytellers as skilled as the Irish; we are a tale-bearing, yarn-spinning, word-loving bunch. Irish writers have always been radical, progressive, profound, creative and groundbreaking. Look at Lawrence Stern, Jonathan Swift, James Joyce, WB Yeats, Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Edna O’Brien, Maeve Binchy, George Bernard Shaw … the list goes on. And in more recent years, Irish writers are quite rightfully shining on the world stage, with the likes of John Banville, Anne Enright, Colm Tóibín, Sally Rooney, Roddy Doyle, Eimear McBride, Maggie O’Farrell, Claire Keegan, Emma Donoghue … honestly, I could fill an entire post with a list of Ireland’s astonishingly brilliant authors, poets and playwrights. I’m honoured to spend a night in the same room as the others on the shortlists. My fellow Teen and YA shortlistees are so imaginative and skilled: there is stiff competition indeed. Good luck to them all. You can vote for My Name is Jodie Jones here (you don’t need to vote in every category!): https://www.irishbookawards.ie/vote/
My Name is Jodie Jones has been out for two months now, and the stunning reviews keep coming in: this one by Fiona Noble in The Observer this weekend is gorgeous.
https://observer.co.uk/culture/books/article/young-adult-fiction-of-the-month-spellbinding-stories
Thank you so much, Fiona!
Emma Shevah 