Walker Books partners with Messy Press
Monday, 1 December 2025
Walker Books Australia has announced a new partnership with Aotearoa New Zealand children’s publishing studio Messy Press. Walker Books will “look after sales, distribution and marketing” for the independent children’s...
Living Libraries Infrastructure Program funding announced
Monday, 1 December 2025
The Victorian Government has announced the 2025–26 funding round of the Living Libraries Infrastructure Program (LLIP). The 18 libraries across the state receiving funding are: Banyule City Council – Olympic...
MidnightSun Publishing launches picture book prize
Monday, 1 December 2025
MidnightSun Publishing has announced the MidnightSun Picture Book Prize, a new manuscript prize for emerging or established picture book writers across Australia. Entries are open until 25 December, with the...
Magabala acquires Pascoe & Norris’s “Big Sky”
Monday, 1 December 2025
Magabala Books has acquired Big Sky: When the Emu Left the Earth by First Nations author Bruce Pascoe and astrophysicist Ray Norris. A Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man, Pascoe is...
Morton wins Walkley for “Mean Streak”
Monday, 1 December 2025
Mean Streak (Fourth Estate), Rick Morton’s account of the robodebt scandal, has won this year’s Walkley Book Award. Judges said, “Mean Streak is a riveting and detailed exposition of government...
Penguin Children’s Bookseller Grant recipients announced
Friday, 28 November 2025
Penguin Random House Australia (PRH) has announced the recipients of the $200,000 grant aiming to “recognise and empower booksellers who are passionate about inspiring the next generation of readers”. The...
Majumdar named RMIT’s non/fictionLab Graphic Storyteller Fellow
Thursday, 27 November 2025
RMIT has announced Soolagna Majumdar as the winner of the inaugural non/fictionLab Graphic Storyteller Fellowship for her graphic novel “Food Bird”. Chosen from 48 applicants, Majumdar receives $15,000 in prize...
SLV responds to reports on cuts
Thursday, 27 November 2025
State Library Victoria (SLV) has responded to reports of changes to its services and staffing. On 21 November, the Age reported leaked details of cuts at SLV: “As outlined to...
Woollahra Digital Literary Award 2025 winners announced
Thursday, 27 November 2025
The winners of the 2025 Woollahra Digital Literary Awards have been announced. The winning works in each category are: Fiction ($2500) Nadia Mahjouri for The Miracle (published in Island Magazine) Nonfiction ($2500)...
A&U acquires Hardy’s memoir and novel
Wednesday, 26 November 2025
Allen & Unwin (A&U) has acquired ANZ rights to Emma Hardy’s memoir Periodic Bitch and a planned novel, in a two-book deal brokered by Michaela McGuire at a4 Literary. According...
Ticket sales double at Readings’s A Day In Carlton
Wednesday, 26 November 2025
Readings Bookshop’s annual A Day in Carlton festival (“actually a day and a bit,” said the organisers) was held in Melbourne from 13 to 15 November. Attracting 2800 attendees —...
A&U acquires accessible picture book
Wednesday, 26 November 2025
Allen & Unwin (A&U) has acquired world rights to All the Ways I See, by Nas Campanella and Eliza Hull, in a deal brokered by Pippa Masson at Curtis Brown. Sophie...
Thom-Jones takes out top Scarlet Stiletto Award
Tuesday, 25 November 2025
Author Sandra Thom-Jones has won first prize in Sisters in Crime’s 32nd Scarlet Stiletto Awards for her short story “Der Hölle Rache”. Thom-Jones, who identifies as neurodivergent, said, “I’m still...
HarperCollins acquires new Swann novel
Tuesday, 25 November 2025
HarperCollins has acquired ANZ rights to Leah Swann’s novel Later, Only Love Remains, in a deal brokered by Gaby Naher at the Naher Agency. Described by the publisher as a...
Transit Lounge acquires new Kenway novel
Tuesday, 25 November 2025
Transit Lounge has acquired world rights to East Coast Low, Lisa Kenway’s follow-up to All You Took from Me (also Transit Lounge, 2024). East Coast Low tells the story of...
Beveridge receives lifetime achievement award
Monday, 24 November 2025
Poet Judith Beveridge has been named one of this year’s recipients of Creative Australia Awards for Lifetime Achievement. Born in London in 1956, Beveridge moved to Sydney in 1960. Her...
ABC adapts “The Unbelieved”
Monday, 24 November 2025
Production has commenced on Dustfall, a six-part ABC adaptation of Vikki Petraitis’s 2022 crime novel The Unbelieved (A&U). Allen & Unwin sold film/TV rights to The Unbelieved to UK-based Moonriver TV,...
Five Islands Poetry Prize shortlist announced
Monday, 24 November 2025
The shortlist for the 2024 to 2025 Five Islands Poetry Prize has been announced. Shortlisted titles are: Bathypelagia (Debbie Lim, Cordite) Portraits of Drowning (Madeleine Dale, UQP) The Infant Vine...
The Next Chapter 2026 recipients announced
Monday, 24 November 2025
The Wheeler Centre has announced the 2026 recipients of The Next Chapter fellowship program. The fellowships aim to encourage “voices who aren’t getting heard through conventional publishing channels”, according the...
UQP sells UK and Commonwealth rights to “Dead Ink”
Monday, 24 November 2025
University of Queensland Press (UQP) has sold UK and Commonwealth (excluding Canada and ANZ) rights to Jordan Prosser’s Blue Giant to Dead Ink Books. According to the publisher, Blue Giant...
NewSouth acquires Grant’s latest book
Monday, 24 November 2025
NewSouth Publishing has acquired world rights to author and broadcaster Stan Grant’s When Words Fail Us: Truth beyond time, in a deal brokered by Tara Wynne at Curtis Brown. The...
PRH acquires debut Crozier novel
Thursday, 20 November 2025
Penguin Random House Australia (PRH) has acquired ANZ rights to vampire romantasy Vow of Eternal Night by debut author and PRH marketing executive Lily Crozier. PRH rights manager Sarah McDuling...
Spiers Prize winners announced
Thursday, 20 November 2025
UWA Publishing (UWAP) has announced the winners of the inaugural Spiers Prize as Zahina Maghrabi for “The Girl, The Calico and The Soldier” (young adult) and Rebeca Green for “A...
IPEd appoints Macdonald as chair
Thursday, 20 November 2025
The Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd) has appointed Catherine Macdonald as chair of the board following the 2025 AGM on 10 November. Macdonald has been on the committee of Editors...
James, Bradley win business book of the year award
Wednesday, 19 November 2025
Glen James and Nick Bradley have won the 7th Australian Business Book Award for The Quick Start Guide to Investing (Wiley). Founders Michael Hanrahan and Andrew Griffiths announced James, Bradley...
Langton awarded inaugural Rechnitz Memorial Award
Wednesday, 19 November 2025
The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia has announced academic, author and activist Marcia Langton as the inaugural winner of the Rechnitz Memorial Award, which recognises “excellence in research...
Beale named 2026 NZSA President of Honour
Wednesday, 19 November 2025
The New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa (NZSA) has named children’s and YA author Fleur Beale this year’s NZSA President of Honour. The author of more...
HarperCollins acquires new Whiting novel
Wednesday, 19 November 2025
HarperCollins ANZ has acquired world rights to The Nocturnals, a new novel by journalist and author Frances Whiting. According to the publisher, The Nocturnals tells the story of a close-knit group from...
Metzenthen wins Children’s Peace Literature Award
Tuesday, 18 November 2025
David Metzenthen’s The Truth of It (Ford Street) has won the 2025 Children’s Peace Literature Award, South Australian Psychologists for Peace (SAPP) has announced. The Truth of It, a middle-grade...
Record numbers at 2025 QLF
Tuesday, 18 November 2025
The 11th annual Queenscliffe Literary Festival (QLF), held in the seaside Victorian town from 17 to 26 October, attracted a record 4330 attendees – significantly more than the borough’s population...
