The Best Young Writer in the World!

The 2008 shortlist for the Dylan Thomas Prize for Young Writers has been announced. The £60,000 prize is designed not only to richly reward the best young writer in the world but also to serve as a focus for and incentive to all young writers throughout the English-speaking world.
The Prize is open to young writers of any nationality, from anywhere in the world, provided they are writing in English. Writers must be under 30 years of age. Novels, collections of short stories, poetry, screenplays, radio and theatre plays that have been commercially published are all eligible.
A panel of judges selected the longlist in June, the shortlist this week, and will announce the winner in November. Among those still vying for the prize are short story writer Nam Le for his collection The Boat, and poet Caroline Bird for Trouble Came to the Turnip. American fiction writers Ben Dolnick and Karen Russell made the long list.