The William C. Morris YA Debut Award honors a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens and celebrates impressive new voices in young adult literature.

2010 Winner:

FLASH BURNOUT
by L.K. Madigan
Saturated self-portrait: Blake, nice guy, class clown, always trying to get a laugh, not sure where to focus. Contrast. Shannon, Blake's GF. Total. Babe. Marissa, just a friend and fellow photographer. Shannon loves him; Marissa needs him. How is he supposed to frame them both in one shot?

2010 Finalists:

ASH
by Malinda Lo
In this variation on the Cinderella story, Ash grows up believing in the fairy realm that the king and his philosophers have sought to suppress, until one day she must choose between a handsome fairy cursed to love her and the King's Huntress whom she loves.

BEAUTIFUL CREATURES
by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
In a small South Carolina town, where it seems little has changed since the Civil War, sixteen-year-old Ethan is powerfully drawn to Lena, a new classmate with whom he shares a psychic connection and whose family hides a dark secret that may be revealed on her sixteenth birthday.

THE EVERAFTER
by Amy Huntley
Madison Stanton doesn't know where she is or how she got there. The only company she has are luminescent objects that turn out to be all the things she lost while she was alive. She soon discovers that, with these artifacts, she can re-experience – and even change – moments from her life.

HOLD STILL
by Nina LaCour
Ingrid didn't leave a note. Three months after her best friend's suicide, Caitlin finds what she left instead: a journal, hidden under Caitlin's bed.

See the 2009 Winner and Honor Books.

For more information, please visit the William C. Morris Award web site.