BIO
Emma Young has always traded in words. Armed with a BA in English Literature, she became a bookseller. When the customers finally wore her out, she retrained as a journalist.
She is now a digital reporter and sub-editor for WAtoday, with work regularly appearing in sister publications The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
She has won nine WA Media Awards and three times been shortlisted for the Arthur Lovekin Prize for Excellence in Journalism.
In 2019, her first fiction manuscript The Last Bookshop was shortlisted for the inaugural $20,000 Fogarty Literary Award.
In 2021, The Last Bookshop was published by Fremantle Press.
Her second novel, The Disorganisation of Celia Stone, was published in September 2023 by Fremantle Press.
Half the royalties Emma receives from all sales of this novel, in all its formats, are donated to climate charity Beyond Zero Emissions.
In 2024, Emma was shortlisted for the WA Writer’s Fellowship at the WA Premier’s Book Awards.
AWARDS & RECOGNITION
2024 WA Writer’s Fellowship at the WA Premier’s Book Awards (shortlist)
2023 The Last Bookshop selected for Queensland Writers Centre’s Adaptable program
2022 Arthur Lovekin Prize for Excellence in Journalism (finalist)
2021 WA Media Awards - Best Science and Environmental Report
2021 Arthur Lovekin Prize for Excellence in Journalism (finalist)
2020 Arthur Lovekin Prize for Excellence in Journalism (finalist)
2019 Fogarty Literary Award for The Last Bookshop (shortlist)
2019 WA Media Awards - Best Multimedia Report (team award)
2018-19 selected Four Centres Emerging Writers’ Program
2018 selected for the Katharine Susannah Pritchard Writers’ Centre 1st Edition Retreat
2018 WA Media Awards - Matt Price Award for Best Columnist
2018 WA Media Awards - Best Multimedia Report (team award)
2016 WA Media Awards - Best Health/Medical Report
2016 WA Media Awards - Best Online Reporting (team award)
2016 WA Media Awards - Best Science and Environmental Report
2014 WA Media Awards - Best Suburban
2012 WA Media Awards - Best New Journalist or Cadet