Margaret McDonald and Danielle Jawando: Award-Winning YA Fiction
Two of Britains most exciting Young Adult fiction authors Danielle Jawando and Margaret McDonald join us to discuss their award-winning novels. Jawandos third book, If My Words Had Wings , is a life-affirming story of rehabilitation and hope after prison; was recently shortlisted for this years YA Book Prize, an award she won in 2023 for her second novel, When Our Worlds Collided . This year, McDonald became the youngest ever winner of the Carnegie Medal for Writing for her debut novel Glasgow Boys which explores mental health, trauma, inequality and identity through the friendship between two boys who have grown up in foster care.
This year's winners of the Nan Shepherd Writing Competition for S5/S6 pupils, run by the WORD Centre for Creative Writing, will also be announced at the beginning of this event.
Danielle Jawando is an author and screenwriter. Her debut YA novel, And the Stars Were Burning Brightly , won best senior novel in the Great Reads Award, and was shortlisted for the Waterstones Childrens Book Prize, the YA Book Prize, the Jhalak Childrens & YA Prize, the Branford Boase Award and was long-listed for the CILIP Carnegie Medal. Her previous publications include the non-fiction childrens book Maya Angelou (Little Guides to Great Lives), as well as several short plays performed in Manchester and London. Danielle has also worked on Coronation Street as a storyline writer. Her second novel, When Our Worlds Collided , won the 2023 Jhalak Childrens and YA Prize, the YA Book Prize and the 2023 Diverse Book Awards. Her third YA novel, If My Words Had Wings, was published in May 2024.
Margaret McDonaldis a Scottish author from Glasgow. She has been published in various poetry and prose magazines, including The Manifest Station, In Parentheses, Breath and Shadow, and Bandit Fiction . She is a first-generation university student and holds an MLitt in English Literature with distinction (Glasgow University) and a first class B.A Honours in Creative Writing with English Literature (Strathclyde University). She writes about the working-class experience, the student experience, and the Scottish healthcare system as a former NHS employee and disabled author. Glasgow Boys is her debut.
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