Australian Catholics magazine will be running the Young Journalist Award again in 2007. Visit this page early next year for details.

Congratulations to the winners of this year’s Australian Catholics Young Journalist Award.

Senior 

Winner: Hendrika Duivenvoorden, Catholic College Sale, VIC.
Second: Louise Wruck, All Hallows' School, Brisbane, QLD.
Honourable Mention: Daniel Clarke, Lumen Christi Catholic College, Pambula Beach, NSW. Emily Harper, Lumen Christi Catholic College, Pambula Beach, NSW. Matthew Persico, Mazenod College, Mulgrave, VIC. Annie Blachly, Star of The Sea College, Gardenvale, VIC.

Junior 

Winner: Chloe Potvin, St Joseph's Catholic College, East Gosford, NSW.
Second: Daniel Dolatowski, Blackfriars Priory School, Prospect, SA.
Honourable Mention: Kris Withers, Marist College Rosalie, Paddington, QLD. Amelia Jones, Star of the Sea College, Gardenvale, VIC. Joshua Klarica, St Peters Anglican College, Broulee, NSW. Veronica Lee, Sacred Heart Girl's College, Oakleigh, VIC. Mara Papavassiliou, John XXIII College, Mt Claremont, WA. Kosta Cotsonis, Marist College, Bexley, NSW.

The winners were selected from hundreds of outstanding entries from around Australia. This year’s judge, Robert Hefner, former editor of Eureka Street, and former literary editor of the Canberra Times, said choosing a winner from all of the entries was incredibly difficult:

I’ve judged many writing competitions over the past 20 years and this one has been one of the hardest. All of the entries that I read were publishable with various degrees of editing, and I learned something from each one.

Often as I read through the entries, I felt humbled in the presence of these bright young minds examining the issues and ideas of our time with such passion. In the end I struggled to make my choices, so good overall was the quality of the entries.

What I was looking for were pieces that balanced good writing with evidence of research and interviews, on topics of relevance to Australian Catholics. All of the pieces I read were strong in at least one of these three elements, and many of them excelled in two. 
The top entries were the ones that struck me as coming closest to ‘having it all’, and which had something else besides: imagination and simplicity.

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