Edinburgh International Book Festival partners with YA Book Prize

The Bookseller and the Edinburgh International Book Festival are partnering on the magazine’s YA Book Prize. 

The YA Book Prize was launched by The Bookseller in 2014. It is the first prize in the UK and Ireland to specifically focus on fiction for young adults. The partnership with Edinburgh International Book Festival will see the YA Book Prize 2022 shortlisted authors feature in events at the festival in August, as well as a special event to announce the winner on 25th August.  

Rachel Fox, children and schools programme director at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, said: "We are very excited to be working with The Bookseller on the YA Book Prize, which celebrates great books for young adults as we are always keen to connect with this audience and champion the talented authors who write such brilliant books for them. The book festival has been strongly supportive of YA writers for a number of years, and the partnership with The Bookseller is an excellent way to further strengthen our commitment to them and their teen readers going forward."

Caroline Carpenter, The Bookseller’s deputy features editor and chair of the YA Book Prize, said: "The Edinburgh International Book Festival is one of the world’s leading literary events and we are looking forward to working with the team there on the YA Book Prize. As the prize enters its eighth year, this partnership will allow us to reach new audiences and grow its impact, making it bigger and better than ever." 

2021 Edinburgh International Book Festival at its new home in Edinburgh College of Art 
(credit: Edinburgh International Book Festival / Robin Mair)

The YA Book Prize 2022 will be open to a YA fiction title first published in print form in the UK or Ireland between 1st January 2021 and 31st December 2021. The author must have been living in the UK or Ireland for at least six months before publication. Submissions will open on Monday 7th February 2022 via the YA Book Prize website and will close on Friday 25th March. The shortlist will be announced in June and the winning author, who will be announced at an event at The Edinburgh International Book Festival in August, will receive a £2,000 prize. 

Previous winners of the YA Book Prize include Louise O’Neill, Sarah Crossan, Patrice Lawrence and Juno Dawson. The 2021 winner was Loveless by Alice Oseman (HarperCollins), a story about a romance-obsessed teenager who realises that she is aromantic and asexual.

The YA Book Prize had previously been run in partnership with The Hay Festival. Carpenter added: "We are grateful to The Hay Festival for its support on the prize over the past five years and wish the team there all the best with the 2022 programme."

The Edinburgh International Book Festival will run from Saturday 13th to Monday 29th August 2022 at The Edinburgh College of Art. The full programme will be announced in June 2022 and all details can be found at the festival’s website.