The Inky Awards are an Australian award for young adult literature. Twenty books, published in the previous financial year, are announced as the Inkys Longlist - ten Australian books for the Gold Inky Award, and ten International books for the Silver Inky Award. As some of you know, Steph from Hey Teenager, author James Roy and myself are among the judging panel for this year.

Of these books, five from each category will be selected by us, and then the voting lines will open, and Australia's teenagers are invited to vote for their favourite book. The book with the most votes wins the Inky Award!

This Thursday, at 1:15pm (AEST), the 2009 Inky Awards will be launched online, and we would like for you to attend! 2008 Gold Inky winning author (and 2009 judge) James Roy will be speaking, and the 2009 Inky Longlist will be announced. Guess who you will also SEE online? That's right, moi.

You can attend the online launch as long as you have a computer with an internet connection, a current browser with Java installed, and computer speakers. Register attendance here. Check your system's compatability here. Click on "Configuration Room" to check that your connection and speakers. The first time that you enter Elluminate, it may take a while to download onto your system (up to about 10 minutes) but it will be much faster next time you log in.

Finally, on Thursday, click the Elluminate link that you were given when you registered. Create a name for your login session, then click "Login".

Then sit back, and enjoy the launch. You can contribute comments to the session by typing in the Chat field.

And if you want to know more about the Inky Awards, check out the Centre for Youth Literature's website, inside a dog.

Thank you to Andrew from Librarian Idol (and chair of the online launch) for allowing me to cut and paste all the details of this launch!