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Linton and Jensen win Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition
Marisa Linton’s The Pouka King has won the overall Times/Chicken House award, the prize of which is a £10,000 publishing contract. Meanwhile, The Lime Pictures New Storyteller Award, awarded to the novel which shows the greatest TV development potential, was won by Asli Jensen for her novel Love on Sight. Jensen was awarded a £7,500 publishing contract and the offer of representation.
The two winners have each won a publishing deal with Chicken House and the offer of representation from Curtis Brown agent Davinia Andrew-Lynch.
The Pouka King follows "a family of urban kids moving to a remote rural community where local legends of the demonic Pouka King match protagonist Morgan’s terrifying visions of the past". The synopsis adds: "A thrilling blend of romance, fantasy and folk horror, this atmospheric but ultimately uplifting story sees Morgan teaming up with local teen Girven to investigate the history of the community and try to stop dark forces from taking over."
Meanwhile, in Love on Sight, Jensen’s YA contemporary romance, follows English-Jamaican Sabrina and Somali-Muslim Jalaal as their relationship is "both hindered and helped by their cultural backgrounds".
Chicken House m.d. and publisher Barry Cunningham was joined on the judging panel by Andrew-Lynch, children’s industry experts, including Times reporter and children’s book critic Lucy Bannerman, author Frances Hardinge, scout and festival organiser Jane Churchill, Bounce sales rep C J Gajjar, Waterstones Children’s Team campaigner Lucy Jakes, and co-head of Lime Picture’s Kids & Family Tim Compton.
The competition for 2024 will reopen on 1st December 2023 and the deadline for submissions is 1st June 2024. It is open to unpublished, unagented writers and accepts entries aimed at readers from age seven all the way up to age 18.
The competition costs £20 to enter and is open to writers from all over the world, as long as they write in English, are un-agented and have not had a children’s book published before. For more details on the competition and instructions on how to enter, writers can visit the Chicken House website.
