The winner of the 2001 Branford Boase Award is Marcus Sedgwick for Floodland (Orion Children's Books), his first children's novel. Winning the editor's award is Fiona Kennedy, Deputy Publisher at Orion Children's Books, who spotted Marcus's talent and oversaw the publication of this first book.

The annual Branford Boase Award celebrates the most promising new children's writer of the previous year, and highlights the importance of the editor in identifying and nurturing new talent.

Floodland is set in the near future. Most of eastern England around Norwich is flooded. Surviving communities stranded on higher ground, after initial attempts at organisation, have descended into chaos and anarchy. Zoe, separated from her parents when the family took the boat to the mainland to make a new life, determines to escape. This tense, absorbing story charts Zoe's encounters with other desperate survivors, her growing deftness at negotiating difficult situations and her gritty determination to find her family. Katherine Roberts, one of this year's judges, described the book as "A flood story of our time, sensitive and gripping. I was with Zoe every oar stroke of her quest."

Floodland is Marcus's first novel but it comes out of a wide experience of children's books. He is an editor for the children's book packager Templar, and previously worked as an area sales manager for Ragged Bears. He started his career as a bookseller at Heffer's Children's Bookshop in Cambridge. Marcus's second book, Witch Hill, was published in March 2001.

The Award ceremony took place on July 11 at Walker Books in London. Marcus Sedgwick accepted a cheque for £1,000 from Katherine Roberts, winner of the 2000 Branford Boase Award. She also presented Marcus and Fiona Kennedy, with a specially engraved box each to mark their successful partnership.

Katherine Roberts outlined just what winning the Branford Boase Award had done for her career. Her successes over the last year include a seven-book contract with HarperCollins, a new book Spelifail and the sequel to Song Quest with Barry Cunningham's Chicken House, Scholastic USA taking Spelifall (as well as the complete Chicken House list) and her recent invitation from the American Library Association to address their conference in San Francisco. The Award had helped open doors swiftly and moved her career forward at a time when it could have stalled — her first publisher had gone into receivership.

Katherine then reviewed the strong short list from which the judges (herself, Julia Eccleshare, Anne Marley, Jane Nissen and Tony West) had chosen the winner. The judges had very much enjoyed Hazel Riley's spooky and atmospheric tale of an Ancient Egyptian Cult set in modern-day Cornwall, Thanis. They had been caught up in the fantastic quest for The Wind Singer, the first book in the Wind on Fire trilogy by William Nicholson. They had loved the blend of history and supernatural in Nick Mann's First World War ghost story, Control Shift. However, the winner of the Branford Boase Award 2001 was Marcus Sedgwick for his sensitive and gripping flood story of our time, Floodland.

There was a burst of laughter when Katherine wished Marcus everything that she had experienced over the last year — except his publisher going into receivership, of course!