bookjots

FIRST-TIME writer Sally Nicholls, whose book, Ways to Live Forever , is about a young boy dying of leukaemia, was declared winner of the Glen Dimplex New Writers Awards 2008 at a gala dinner in Dublin last night.

The award recognises writers who have been published in Ireland and Britain for the first time in the past year. There are five categories: fiction; poetry; biography/non-fiction; children's book; and a book in any genre in the Irish language.

The presenter said the book had "qualities of story-telling to draw in readers of any age. It is profound, honest, intelligent, funny and sad, and filled with scenes that continue to haunt after the final, inevitable chapter."

Sally won the prize for the writer who showed the most potential. Nicholls, who is in her early 20s and currently based in London, is writing her second novel.

Ways to Live Forever has already won the 2008 Waterstone's Children's Book Prize and is longlisted for the 2009 Manchester Book Award.