LITTLE MICE by Tara Crowe (YA/MG)
A SUMMER FOR MOTHS by Henry Rivers (Adult)
About Tara
A London native and lifelong bookworm, reading has always been Tara’s favourite pastime. She spent her childhood with her nose buried in a book and loves all types of fiction, from historical epics to futuristic dystopia, devouring anything that transports her to another world.
After university, Tara spent a decade navigating the worlds of publishing sales at The Guardian and New Scientist, until motherhood prompted a career change. She then spent several happy years teaching phonics to a bunch of wonderfully silly preschool kids, employing storytelling, puppets, and some incredibly bad singing.
More recently Tara worked at Ingenious, a company making collagen supplements. Fascinated by the increasingly clever ways science can trick our bodies into looking and feeling younger, the inspiration for her novel Little Mice came from a radio news segment about young blood plasma being used to rejuvenate older people – a concept she found both intriguing and unsettling. The idea lingered: what happens when youth itself becomes a commodity?
Little Mice is Tara’s debut novel, and she’s currently working on the sequel. She lives in Dulwich with her husband, two teenage children, a cat with delusions of grandeur, and a spectacularly lazy Cavalier spaniel named Cleo. Her house is perpetually messy, with piles of books in every room, and she’s given up apologising for the dog hair. When she isn’t writing, Tara can often be found tramping around the parks of SE London with Cleo, thinking through plot problems – until it starts raining, when Cleo stages a full-on revolt and refuses to go any further.
About Henry
Henry Rivers is the not-so-secret pen name of children’s author and illustrator J.R. Potter best known for his award-winning supernatural series Thomas Creeper that follows the adventures of a mortician’s apprentice turned detective for the dead. His graphic novel work has been published by Image Comics, and in 2024 he received the Denis Diderot Emerging Artist Award to spend two weeks as writer-in-residence at Chateau Orquevaux in France.
Passionate about literacy and sharing wonder, Potter was recently hired by Heinemann Publishing, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, to create stories about empathy to be used in schools across the country. As a working musician and songwriter by day (and night), he loves to play at the intersection of words and music. A Summer for Moths is the opportunity to combine those two loves in a synesthetic experience that will mix live readings with live music.
You can follow his work on Instagram at allbooksbuildbridges and on the web at www.jrpotterbooks.com.
We are thrilled to have Faith Shearin as the judge of the 2025 YA/MG Fiction Category. Faith’s novel Lost River, 1918won the Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize in 2021 and My Sister Lives in the Sea is forthcoming. She is also an acclaimed poet.
Faith Shearin’s seven books of poetry include: The Owl Question (May Swenson Award), Telling the Bees (SFA University Press), Orpheus, Turning (Dogfish Poetry Prize), Darwin’s Daughter (SFA University Press), and Lost Language (Press 53). Her poems have been read aloud on The Writer’s Almanac and included in American Life in Poetry. She has received awards from Yaddo, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her essays and short stories have won prizes from, and have appeared in: The Sun, New Ohio Review, The Missouri Review, The Florida Review, and Literal Latte, among others.
Cat and Josie belong to different worlds, but they share a lifeline — their small town’s high school cross country team. Can they set aside their differences to do what’s best for their teammates — and themselves?
Cat Shultz needs a fresh start. After spending several months at an eating disorder treatment facility, she comes home to the realities of her older sister leaving for college, her best friend growing distant, and the stress of sophomore year looming. When an unlikely invitation lands her a spot on Plain City High School’s cross country team, Cat discovers a natural talent for long distance running, and what she hopes is a step toward recovery. The only problem? She’ll have to lie—to her parents, her team, and ultimately herself.
Josie Romero lives for cross country. When Coach Davis—the closest thing she has to a father—announces this will be his last season, she believes a championship win against their rivals will convince him to stay. As team captain, Josie has always fiercely supported her teammates, but when Cat challenges her spot as the fastest runner, Josie must confront her own insecurities in order to become the leader they deserve.
As the championship race approaches, conflicts arise on and off the course, and suddenly winning feels less likely than ever. When Cat can no longer outrun her lies, Josie finds herself racing for something much more important than the finish line.
Wolfpack is a heartwarming tale of healing, hope, and learning that you always go farthest if you run as a pack.
“Running might seem like it’s only about putting one foot in front of the other. But when every step puts friendship, health and secrets at risk of imploding, the stakes are so much higher – and the finish line seems even further away. Readers will be racing to turn the page.” – Becca Barnes, YA/MG category judge
Natalie Shaw Evjen is passionate about storytelling that builds bridges. She writes about faith, health, motherhood, and adolescence. She has a passion for sports, and Wolfpack was largely inspired by her experiences as a competitive long distance runner as a teen and young adult. Her stories and poems have appeared in various literary journals and received several awards, including 2nd prize in the Mari Sandoz/Prairie Schooner short story contest. Professionally, she teaches humanities and creative writing to secondary students, utilizing both a B.S. in history from Utah State University and an M.A. in English from Weber State University. When she’s not writing or teaching, she is spending time with her family, gardening, or playing the piano. She has lived in Georgia, Virginia, and Nebraska, but was raised and currently resides in Ogden, Utah with her husband, kids, and mischievous house rabbits.
Magic BoyA neurodivergent boy uses his special powers to win the World Championship of chess.
Magic Boy is about embracing your weirdness, your otherness, to find a satisfying place in an unwelcoming world. It’s a story about discovering how each of us is simultaneously “different” yet identical, all connected in a divine web of imperfect perfection.
“Magic Boy is about being weird and (eventually) being okay with being weird. It’s for anyone who has struggled to fit in, who has felt friendless or misunderstood, who has, for protection or distraction, held a singular focus in hopes of great rewards. (Writers and rabid readers, I mean you. I mean me.)” –Lara Tupper, adult category judge
Michael Konik is the author of thirteen previous books of fiction, journalism, and memoir, most recently The Unexpected Guest: How a Homeless Man from the Streets of Los Angeles Redefined Our Home. His essays have appeared in more than 100 periodicals, including the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and the Times of London. A widely published poet writing as MK Punky, he created the 365-poem interactive art experience “The Year of When”. Konik lives in Los Angeles, where he works as a dog trainer and plays mediocre chess.
