Tuesday 7th October | Island Sailing Club

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This year’s IW Book Awards Presentation Lunch will be the first event of the IW Literary Festival and will be held at the Island Sailing Club in Cowes from midday on Tuesday 7th October, it will feature an opening speech by the Awards’ founder Hunter Davies and the three judges will be on hand to announce the winners and present the awards. Sponsored by David and Patsy Franks, The Isle Of Wight Festival, Creative Island, Medina Publishing and Monkton Arts, this year’s prizes are £200 for each of the category winners and an additional £500 for the overall winner of the Book Of The Year Award.

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There are three categories Children’s, Fiction and Non Fiction, and this year’s judges are: 

• Nicholas Allan (Children’s) Nicholas is the bestselling picture book author/illustrator of brilliant books such as ‘The Queen’s Knickers’ and ‘Father Christmas Needs A Wee’

• Mark Eccleston (Fiction) Former BBC journalist, writing as M.H. Eccleston his superb Island based cosy-crime novel ‘Death On The Isle’ was the winner of the very first IOW Book Awards

• Lucinda Hawksley (Non Fiction) Award winning author, art historian, public speaker & broadcaster specialising in literature, art, history and social history from the 19th and early 20th centuries, Lucinda is the great, great, great grandaughter of Charles Dickens.

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As with previous years the awards event will have a chosen charity who will give a short presentation on the day and receive all funds raised from a stall selling the judge’s copies of the entrant’s books, as well as a raffle. This year’s selected recipient is Sporting Opportunities IOW, an independent sports charity offering training and competition opportunities to athletes with learning disabilities on the island. Now officially accredited with Special Olympics Great Britain they have access to local, regional and national competition’s across the country.

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Paul Armfield who coordinated the awards says ‘Of course writing is not a competition, but the ultimate spirit of the awards is to celebrate books about the Island, to raise their profile so that people get to hear of them, they also encourage new writing, and give budding writers something to aim for. It’s a fun way to keep the story alive, and by being part of the Literary Festival it creates a further opportunity for local talent to be included in the bigger picture.’

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For more information visit the Awards website Isle of Wight Book Awards