Edinburgh student wins
Penguin Orange Readers' Group Prize
London, 27 May 2009: Edinburgh student, Jen Campbell, has won the 2009 Penguin Orange Readers’ Group Prize. As part of her prize she will receive a cheque for £1,000 and a pair of tickets to the Orange Prize for Fiction 2009 awards ceremony in London on 3rd June.
Jen Campbell recently finished her English Literature degree at Edinburgh University, where she ran her online book forum with over 100 topics for discussion. It proved so popular that she launched the Book Club and Obsessive Book Club in August 2008. There are now over 5,000 international members with a broad age range from 13 – 50, hailing from Australia to Finland. The online nature of the Book Club means members are able to suggest a diverse range of books and post comments at any time.
Jen commented: 'Looking at the shortlist I really didn't expect this at all - thank you so much! I owe a lot to Pete, Cheryl and Saz who let me set up the subforum, and the members who help make it what it is.
I'm definitely going to use some of the prize money to run a competition where members can email about why they love reading to win book tokens. Thank you again, I'm over the moon.'
The six youth panel members chosen to shadow the judging process of the official Orange Prize for Fiction 2009 selected the shortlist of four from a wide variety of entries. Kate Mosse, author, Orange Prize Honorary Director and Chair of judges for the 2009 Readers’ Group Prize, selected the winner.
find out more about
the shortlistvisit
Kate Mosse commented: 'Congratulations to Jen Campbell on winning the 2009 Penguin Orange Readers’ Group Prize. It's a great achievement to run such a well supported and vibrant online Book Club and succeed in attracting such a huge number of international book lovers. There's no doubting her commitment to making reading, often a private passion, as social and community-based as possible.
From the point of view of the Orange Prize for Fiction itself, it's interesting to see this new generation of online reading groups in virtual spaces, rather than taking place in workplaces or members' homes. We hope that Jen’s success will inspire others who love reading but do not have the time to meet in-person to explore the concept of online book groups.'