Local news | Books+Publishing

Pantera acquires Earp debut novel

Wednesday, 27 March 2024
Pantera has acquired ANZ rights to Painting Portraits of Everyone I’ve Ever Dated, a debut novel by Joseph Earp, in a deal brokered by Jeanne Ryckmans at Key People Literary...

Booktique to open store in Albury

Wednesday, 27 March 2024
Booktique—an independent bookshop currently operating in Wangaratta, Victoria—is opening a second store in Albury, NSW. Michelle Delle Vergin, who owns both stores with husband Mark Bolsius, said that for the...

Author events: Report highlights relationships as key, problematic

Tuesday, 26 March 2024
Live Literature in Australia, a new research report jointly conducted by Australia Reads and the University of Melbourne, examined the ‘considerations and barriers’ for booksellers, librarians, and teachers hosting live...

Copyright Licensing New Zealand launches IP platform

Tuesday, 26 March 2024
In Aotearoa New Zealand, not-for-profit organisation Copyright Licensing New Zealand (CLNZ) has launched a platform to support creative workers to ‘better manage their intellectual property’. The platform, called MyCreativeRights, is...

Marr’s ‘Killing for Country’ wins 2024 Indie Book of the Year Award

Monday, 25 March 2024
David Marr’s Killing for Country: A family story (Black Inc.) has been named Book of the Year in the Indie Book Awards. The winning titles in each category are: Fiction Edenglassie (Melissa...

Murray awarded 2024 Boundless mentorship

Monday, 25 March 2024
Bardi writer Kalem Murray is the winner of the 2024 Boundless Indigenous Writer’s Mentorship, presented by Text Publishing and Writing NSW with the support of the First Nations Australia Writers...

Sterlin wins Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest Award

Monday, 25 March 2024
Meanjin (Brisbane) poet Svetlana Sterlin has won the 2023 Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest Award for her unpublished book-length collection ‘If Movement Were a Language’. Selected from a shortlist of...

Scribner acquires Beecher’s ‘The Men Who Killed the News’

Monday, 25 March 2024
Simon & Schuster Australia (S&S) has acquired world rights to The Men Who Killed the News by Crikey publisher Eric Beecher under its Scribner imprint. This work of nonfiction is...

Blake Poetry Prize 2024 shortlist announced

Monday, 25 March 2024
Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, in collaboration with WestWords, has announced the shortlist for the 68th Blake Poetry Prize, worth $5000. The Blake Prize is an open poetry prize that ‘challenges...

QBD named in Deloitte’s Best Managed Companies program

Monday, 25 March 2024
Bookselling chain QBD has been named as one of Australia’s Best Managed Companies in an award program run by Deloitte Australia. Accepting the award on behalf of the organisation, QBD...

Brisbane Writers Festival releases 2024 program

Monday, 25 March 2024
The Brisbane Writers Festival (BWF) has launched its 2024 program, which will run from 30 May until 2 June. Over 150 live events are planned for the 2024 festival, with...

Pham named UTS writer in residence

Monday, 25 March 2024
Vietnamese-Australian novelist, essayist and poet Vivian Pham has been awarded the Copyright Agency–UTS New Writer in Residence fellowship for 2024. Pham is the author of the novel The Coconut Children...

Full 2024 MWF program announced

Friday, 22 March 2024
Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF) has launched the full program for its 2024 festival, to be held in venues across the Melbourne CBD and surrounds from 6 to 12 May. Outgoing MWF...

ABIAs 2024 shortlists announced

Thursday, 21 March 2024
The Australian Publishers Association (APA) has announced the shortlists for the 2024 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs). The APA will announce the business awards shortlists, including the categories of publisher,...

Dick and Joan Green Family Award for Tasmanian History longlist

Thursday, 21 March 2024
The longlist has been announced for the 2024 Dick and Joan Green Family Award for Tasmanian History, worth $25,000. The longlisted works are: Limberlost (Robbie Arnott, Text) Dogs in Van...

Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest Award shortlist announced

Thursday, 21 March 2024
The University of Sydney’s faculty of arts and social sciences has announced the shortlist for the Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest Award for 2023. The Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest...

Good Thing Productions acquires ‘Cherrywood’ screen rights

Wednesday, 20 March 2024
Screen rights to the forthcoming novel Cherrywood by Jock Serong (Fourth Estate) have been optioned by Good Thing Productions, via Melanie Ostell Literary. Good Thing Productions’ recent screen projects include Nitram and Nude...

Maguire’s historical fiction ‘Rapture’ sells to Sceptre

Wednesday, 20 March 2024
In the UK, Sceptre has acquired world rights (ex ANZ) to Rapture, the first historical novel from Emily Maguire (Allen & Unwin), about the legend of Pope Joan, via Grace...

Hachette signs Pei Yin’s ‘When Sleeping Women Wake’

Wednesday, 20 March 2024
In a joint acquisition, Hachette Australia and Quercus UK have secured UK and Commonwealth rights at auction for Canberra author Emma Pei Yin’s debut novel When Sleeping Women Wake, in...

The Bookshop Bowral and Kiama to change hands

Wednesday, 20 March 2024
Marie Fitzpatrick, of The Bookshop Bowral and Kiama, has announced that the bookshops have been purchased by Clare Meldrum, and that the current owners will depart next month. Fitzpatrick said...

Woehlert and Lake list Imprint Booksellers for sale

Wednesday, 20 March 2024
Katherine Woehlert and Jason Lake, proprietors of Adelaide bookstore Imprints Booksellers, have placed the business on the market. In a statement shared on the bookstore’s Facebook page earlier this month,...

CBCA 2024 shortlists announced

Tuesday, 19 March 2024
The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has announced its shortlist for the 2024 CBCA Book of the Year Awards. The shortlisted books in each category, selected from the 2024...

Skate appointed Writers Victoria CEO

Tuesday, 19 March 2024
Writers Victoria has appointed Julie Skate as its new CEO. Skate takes over the role from Lucy Hamilton, who in February announced she would depart after three-and-a-half years with the...

Pantera acquires Wright fantasy debut

Tuesday, 19 March 2024
Pantera Press has acquired Skysong, a fantasy novel by debut author C A Wright. Skysong is a ‘beautiful, lyrical retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Nightingale’ that follows Oriane, a...

North American rights sold for Rogers’ ‘The Heart Is a Star’

Tuesday, 19 March 2024
North American rights to The Heart Is a Star (Megan Rogers, HarperCollins) have been sold in a pre-empt to Central Avenue Publishing by Benython Oldfield at Zeitgeist Agency. The novel—Rogers’...

Auckland Writers Festival program announced

Monday, 18 March 2024
The program for the Auckland Writers Festival, which will run 14–19 May 2024, has been announced. Fiction headliners include prize-winning novelist Ann Patchett; international bestselling author Celeste Ng; Pulitzer Prize–winning...

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