Martyn Bedford - Writer

A smashing end to the week with the news that Twenty Questions for Gloria has been longlisted for the Redbridge Teenage Book Award 2017, one of the bigger regional prizes in children’s and YA fiction.

My novel is one of 15 selected for the award, run by the north-east London council’s Schools’ Library Service, and which will be read over the coming months – and voted for – by hundreds of students at 16 participating schools across the borough. The shortlist will be revealed at the end of May, followed by the announcement of the winner at a special event in July. I’ve read six of the other titles in contention and am flattered and, frankly, daunted to find myself in their company. The quality of teenage fiction just seems to grow stronger every year.

The award, which includes a children’s category, aims to promote the reading, appreciation and discussion of literature among young people in schools. Since it began in 2004, the winners of the teenage category have included some of the big-hitters in young-adult fiction (Malorie Blackman, Suzanne Collins, Darren Shan) and, in the last three years, the prize has gone to two Carnegie Medal-winning titles – One, by Sarah Crossan, and The Bunker Diary, by Kevin Brooks – and the international bestselling We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart.

Here’s the longlist for the 2017 award:

Cecilia Ahern – Flawed
Tara Altebrando – The Leaving
Sara Barnard – Beautiful Broken Things
Martyn Bedford – Twenty Questions for Gloria
Anne Cassidy – Moth Girls
Nicci Cloke – Follow Me Back
Helen Dennis – River of Ink: Genesis
Kathryn Evans – More of Me
Zana Fraillon – The Bone Sparrow
Alan Gibbons – The Trap
M.A. Griffin – Lifers
Richard Kurti – Maladapted
Simon Mayo – Blame
Ransom Riggs – Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Teri Terry – Book of Lies