The 10th Annual Text Prize

Adelaide writer Adam Cece has beaten nearly 300 entries to win the Tenth Annual Text Prize, valued at $10,000, for his hilariously crazy story, The Extremely Weird Thing That Happened in Huggabie Falls. An extremely weird and hilariously crazy story about three friends living in the weirdest town in the world. This is a laugh-out-loud madcap adventure for middle-grade readers that turns weirdness upside down.

Adam Cece, Winner of the Tenth Annual Text Prize. In 2015, Adelaide-based Adam Cece published his first children’s book, Wesley Booth Super Sleuth. He is a member of a number of writing organisations and is a manuscript assessor for the SA Writers Centre. On winning the Text Prize, Adam said, ‘I am so honoured to have won the Text Prize in its tenth amazing year, and humbled to be in such a good company. The whole team at Text is so passionate and so good at what they do. I am over the moon.’   Publisher Michael Heyward said, ‘The Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing is about launching careers. It’s about finding new voices. This year, the tenth year of the prize, is testament to the abundant literary talent we have in this country. We read around 300 manuscripts and decided to offer publishing deals to all four writers on the shortlist, something we have never done before. It was difficult to pick a winner, but in the end we couldn’t resist Adam Cece’s sublimely ridiculous tale for middle-graders, The Extremely Weird Thing that Happened in Huggabie Falls. It’s hard to imagine how this delightful book won’t charm the socks off its readers. This book is a crash course in Dutch werewolves, vegetarian piranhas and crazy street names. It’s a particular pleasure to publish a book that will make its readers—children and grown-ups alike—happy. We can’t wait to tell the whole publishing world, both in Australia and internationally, about Huggabie Falls and its inhabitants, who are so crazy that they even find each other weird. Awarded annually, the Text Prize aims to unearth extraordinary new books for young adults and children by Australian and New Zealand writers. Submissions for the 2018 Text Prize will open early in 2018. Watch out for the 2016 Text Prize winner, Beautiful Mess by Claire Christian, in September 2017.