News sections | Books+Publishing

Affirm acquires Levin manifestation guide ‘Make YOU Happen’

Friday, 30 July 2021
Affirm has acquired personal development title Make YOU Happen: Figure out who you are, what you need (and why you already have it) by Jordanna Levin. A sequel to Levin’s...

Boyle wins 2021 Text Prize for ‘Dancing Barefoot’

Friday, 30 July 2021
Victorian writer and teacher Alice Boyle has won the 2021 Text Prize for her YA novel Dancing Barefoot. According to Text, Dancing Barefoot is 'a story about finding love, figuring out...

Kuracca Prize 2021 winner announced

Friday, 30 July 2021
The winner and runners up in the inaugural Kuracca Prize for Australian Literature have been announced. Chosen from a longlist of 12 authors, Adam Brannigan won the $5000 prize for...

PRH acquires Chadderton middle-grade graphic novel

Thursday, 29 July 2021
Penguin Random House (PRH) Australia has acquired world rights to the contemporary middle-grade graphic novel Oh, Brother by Adelaide author-illustrator Georgina Chadderton. Rights were acquired in a joint deal between PRH...

Ned Kelly Awards 2021 shortlists announced

Wednesday, 28 July 2021
The Australian Crime Writers Association (ACWA) has announced the shortlist for the 2021 Ned Kelly Awards. The shortlisted titles in each category are: Best crime fiction Consolation (Garry Disher, Text)...

Christmas in July: children’s and YA

Wednesday, 28 July 2021
Last week Books+Publishing brought you a round up of Australian publishers' top adult titles releasing time for Christmas 2021. Here are their children's and young adult picks. Picture books Scholastic’s...

Into the Rip (Damien Cave, Scribner)

Wednesday, 28 July 2021
Damien Cave’s Into the Rip considers how we calculate and cope with risk in Australia. As the first bureau chief of the New York Times Australian outpost, Cave leverages his journalistic point...

Rights round-up

Wednesday, 28 July 2021
Sales Nonfiction NewSouth has sold world English-language rights to Beyond the Hero’s Journey: A screenwriting guide for when you’ve got a different story to tell (Anthony Mullins) to Creative Essentials;...

Welbeck to launch Australian subsidiary, Booker Prize longlist

Wednesday, 28 July 2021
Independent UK publisher Welbeck is establishing a new standalone Australian subsidiary in partnership with Booktopia, with aims to publish 50 local titles a year. The NT Writers Festival has launched...

The Curlew’s Eye (Karen Manton, A&U)

Tuesday, 27 July 2021
A poisoned dam, a crumbling abandoned homestead, encounters with a mysterious girl and the pull of a haunting landscape are all woven together in this literary Australian Gothic debut from Karen Manton....

self/less (AViVA, Macmillan)

Tuesday, 27 July 2021
self/less is the debut novel by self-described multidisciplinary artist AViVA, whose music has a strong online following. Seventeen-year-old Teddy has lived a privileged childhood in the totalitarian city of Metropolis,...

Dragon Skin (Karen Foxlee, A&U)

Tuesday, 27 July 2021
Dragon Skin is the much-anticipated new novel by Karen Foxlee, author of cherished modern classics including the internationally successful Lenny’s Book of Everything. Foxlee is skilled at writing brave yet vulnerable young...

Love & Virtue (Diana Reid, Ultimo)

Tuesday, 27 July 2021
Two young women. An elite residential college. Michaela and Eve are fundamentally different: Michaela is a reserved scholarship student, while Eve, an outgoing envelope-pusher, is brash, bold and beautiful. Despite...

Taylor, Wasley receive 2022 KSP residencies

Tuesday, 27 July 2021
The Katharine Susannah Prichard (KSP) Writers’ Centre in the Perth Hills has announced Josephine Taylor as its 2022 Emerging Writer-in-Residence and Sasha Wasley as its Established Writer-in-Residence. KSP’s residency program...

Mary Gilmore Award 2021 shortlist announced

Tuesday, 27 July 2021
The shortlist for the 2021 Mary Gilmore Award, for the best first book of poetry published in the previous year, has been announced. The shortlisted books are: Cadaver Dog (Luke...

Davitt Awards 2021 shortlists announced

Monday, 26 July 2021
Sisters in Crime Australia has announced the shortlists for the 2021 Davitt Awards for the best crime books by Australian women. The titles shortlisted in each category are: Adult crime...

Read the latest Publishers Weekly

Monday, 26 July 2021
Books+Publishing is partnering with US trade news magazine Publishers Weekly to provide our subscribers with exclusive access to the weekly digital edition of PW magazine. View the edition here.

Wakefield acquires Bellamy memoir ‘that perfectly suits our times’

Friday, 23 July 2021
Wakefield Press has acquired world rights to a memoir about mental illness, queerness and Jewish identity by Archer online editor Roz Bellamy. Mood, which was longlisted for the Kill Your...

Scarlet Stilettos offer record prize money in 2021

Thursday, 22 July 2021
Sisters in Crime Australia's annual Scarlet Stiletto Awards are offering a record $11,910 in prize money this year. The competition, for short crime and mystery stories by women writers, has...

Affirm acquires Cox’s ‘So Many Beats of the Heart’

Thursday, 22 July 2021
Affirm Press has acquired world rights to a novel by Perth-based journalist Carrie Cox via Lyn Tranter at Australian Literary Management. So Many Beats of the Heart is ‘a wonderfully...

S&S acquires two McAlister rom-coms

Thursday, 22 July 2021
Simon & Schuster Australia has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to two adult novels by Jodi McAlister, author of the YA series 'Valentine', via Alex Adsett from Alex Adsett Literary....

Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize 2021 shortlist announced

Thursday, 22 July 2021
The Australian Book Review (ABR) has announced the shortlist for the 2021 Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. The shortlisted works and their authors are: 'The Enemy Asyndeton' by Camilla Chaudhary (NSW) 'A...

In Moonland (Miles Allinson, Scribe)

Wednesday, 21 July 2021
Miles Allinson’s accomplished second novel—the follow-up to his moving and deeply personal 2015 debut Fever of Animals—is an ambitious and gripping story of parenthood, utopias and environmental collapse, told across several interconnected narratives. The narrator of...