Tuesday, 7 April 2009
WA shopping centres pushed to extend trading hours The Shopping Centre Council of Australia has suggested extended weeknight trading hours and Sunday trading in Western Australia would be beneficial to...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Women's Bookshop celebrates 20 years Auckland's Women's Bookshop has celebrated 20 years with a night of literary celebration. More than 700 people attended the party, with ‘grandeur, comedy, pathos and...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
The sixth Williamstown Literary Festival will be held from 1 to 3 May 2009 with the theme of ‘Hidden Life of Suburbs'. The Williamstown Literary Festival looks at the rich...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
An accreditation system has been introduced by the Institute of Professional Editors Limited (IPEd) in Australia, in order to assure employers that quality of work and industry standards are met...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Tracy Ryan is the winner of the Australian Book Review Poetry Prize, worth $4000, for her poem ‘Lost Property'.Ryan told WBN the last year-and-a-half have been ‘big' for her ‘with...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Well known chart-busting author Jodi Picoult comes first in the Highest New Entries this week with Handle with Care, which also comes at number five in the Bestsellers. Picoult has...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Trade events coming up over the next week, as shown on our events calendar, include: Calibre Prize function at State Library of Victoria, 8 AprilSWANCON 2009, Perth, 9-13 AprilTo view...

Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Australian journalist and author Peter Wherrett has died, aged 72. He wrote Desirelines: An Unusual Family Memoir as well as many motoring books.

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Melbourne Writers Festival has revealed two of the authors booked for this year's festival (MWF), to take place 21-30 August, 2009. Muriel Barbery is the author of The Elegance of...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Hachette Australia has closed its Melbourne office. The office, which produced the company's Lothian Children's Books, closed on 31 March.The closure comes after the retirement of children's publisher Helen Chamberlin at the...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Borders will open a new store in Robina on the Gold Coast this week. Borders Asia Pacific managing director John Coote said the 'two-level, 1800sqm store would have more than...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
In rights news this week:  FictionHachette Australia has sold ‘The Castings Trilogy' by Pamela Freeman to France and Ember and Ash by Pamela Freeman to the UK. Text has sold...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Among the stories added to our Around the World blog in the past week:Google Book Search 'all about the orphans'Bloomsbury sees sales and profits fall in 2008UK sees 20% drop...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Several Australian authors and publishers have participated in the second Australian Writers' Week in Beijing and Chengdu, China, from 16 to 20 March. In attendance were authors Henry Reynolds, Kate...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
The full program for the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival, which will run from 13 to 17 May, has been released. ‘I can confidently say it's going to be a...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
As reported in a special WBN bulletin yesterday, the shortlist for this year's Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year awards has been announced. To view the...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
The winner of the 2009 National Biography Award, worth $20,000, is Ann Blainey for I Am Melba (Black Inc.) ‘Ann Blainey has had to peel away layers of the cult...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Though the ABC Fiction Award was not given this year, two titles were commended by ABC Books--Nanu Grewal's Twenty Twelve and Peter Menadue's Crooked House. The judges also decided on a...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
The five titles shortlisted for the inaugural Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book Prize have been announced. The titles in the running for the NZ$12,500 (A$10,108) prize, of which...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
The 2009 Sydney Writers' Festival Program has been launched. Festival director Wendy Were said the festival would offer a ‘wide-ranging' program, including events exploring ‘ideas that stem from the recent...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Webcke's book backShane Webcke's book Hard Road (Macmillan), which the author last week requested be pulped, will now be published as planned and will arrive in stores over the next...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
The Australian Society of Authors' (ASA) Annual General Meeting (AGM) was held on Saturday 28 March at Redfern Town Hall, Sydney. The new committee of management was announced, and the...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Helen Garner has been awarded the 2009 Australian Society of Authors (ASA) Barbara Jefferis Award ($35,000) for The Spare Room (Text). The award, which was announced on Friday 27 March,...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Russell Brand, British actor, comedian and former radio talk show host--until an unfortunate incident occurred on live radio--has reached number one in the Fastest Movers chart this week with My...

Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Trade events coming up over the next week, as shown on our events calendar, include: Bangkok International Book Fair, 26 March -6 AprilTen Days on the Island, Tasmania, 27 March...