Will Kostakis

Will Kostakis
Will Kostakis in July 2017
Born	William Kostakis (1989-06-02) 2 June 1989 (age 35)
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	Australian
Education	Newington College/Sydney University
Notable works	The First Third; The Sidekicks
Notable awards	Sydney Morning Herald Young Writer of the Year (2005); Inky Awards (2014)
Website
www.willkostakis.com

William Kostakis (born 2 June 1989) is an Australian author and journalist. In high school, he won the Sydney Morning Herald Young Writer of the Year prize for a short story called 'Bing Me'. He went on to sign his first book deal in his final year of high school.

• Loathing Lola (2008)
• The First Third (2013)
• The Sidekicks (2016)
• Monuments (2019)
• Rebel Gods (2020)
• The Greatest Hit (2020)
• We Could Be Something (2023)

• Stuff Happens: Sean (2014)

• 'Bing Me'^[1] (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2005)
• 'An Alternate Life' (The Star Observer, 2016)
• 'The Bounce Back' (The Star Observer, 2016)
• 'Hatchet' (The Book That Made Me,^[2] 2016)
• 'I Can See The Ending' (Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology,^[3] 2017)

His first novel for young adults, Loathing Lola, was released in August 2008 through Pan Macmillan under his birth name William Kostakis.^[4] Kostakis scored his first publishing contract at 17, while still completing his final year of high school,^[5] Newington College.^[6] He began work on a variant of Loathing Lola when he was 11 years old, and has since been refining it.^[7] The novel has been a critical success, dubbed a "kickass debut", "a smart, sharp tale about fame, love and loss" by Australian DOLLY Magazine,^[8] "brilliant" by The Examiner,^[9] "a promising debut from a young and talented Australian writer" by Danielle Trabsky at Australian Book Review, "polished" and "extremely funny" by Mike Shuttleworth at the State Library of Victoria,^[10] "highly entertaining" by Angela Meyer at LiteraryMinded,^[11] "a witty tale of trust, teenage friendship, school politics, family relationships and teenage love that is propelled by regular humour, satirical characters and loads of drama... a popular addition to the mid-teen market" by Allison Paterson at Magpies Magazine,^[12] and rated four stars by Anastasia Gonis at Good Reading Magazine, who said, "The story sparkles through the humorous dialogue of a cast of cleverly chosen characters".^[13]

His second novel, The First Third won the 2014 Inky Awards, and was shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year: Older Readers and Prime Minister's Literary Awards.^[14] His novel The Sidekicks, published in 2016, was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards.

We Could Be Something won the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction.^[15] It was shortlisted in 2024 for the Victorian Premier's Prize for Writing for Young Adults^[16] and the Young Adult Book Award, Queensland Literary Awards.^[17]