The Secrets of Strangers (Jess Kitching, S&S)
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
Despite brimming with suspects, lies and a cast of clichéd small-town characters, The Secrets of Strangers by Jess Kitching (The Life Experiment) is anything but a stereotypical “cosy crime” novel....
The Attention Recovery Plan: How to Win the Battle for Focus in a World Built to Break It (David Gillespie, Macmillan)
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
David Gillespie (Sweet Poison, Toxic at Work) has built a reputation for distilling complex research into clear, useful guidance. His latest book, The Attention Recovery Plan: How to Win the Battle...
You’re Welcome!: A Baking Celebration with a Southeast Asian Twist (Raymond Tan & Audrey Payne, Murdoch)
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
Raymond Tan and Audrey Payne’s You’re Welcome!: A Baking Celebration with a Southeast Asian Twist is a joyful, generous cookbook – one to pore over, plan from and build celebrations...
My Wonderful Disgrace (Angourie Rice & Kate Rice, Walker)
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
My Wonderful Disgrace by Angourie Rice and Kate Rice (Stuck Up & Stupid) is a darkly comic tale of misjudgements set around the most anticipated night of the year for...
Every Wild Soul (Katherine Johnson, HarperCollins)
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
Eco-literature has been booming in recent years, thanks largely to writers including James Bradley, Richard Flanagan, Tim Winton, Charlotte Wood and Donna Cameron. Winner of the inaugural Australian Fiction Prize,...
Queensland Literary Awards moves to BWF for “foreseeable future”
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
The Queensland Literary Awards (QLAs) will become part of the 2026 Brisbane Writers Festival (BWF), with a BWF spokesperson confirming to Books+Publishing that BWF would be administering the awards "for...
Newcastle Poetry Prize 2026 winners announced
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
The Hunter Writers’ Centre has announced the winners of the 2026 Newcastle Poetry Prize. The winners in each category are: First place ($15,000) Greg McLaren for “Late Sonnets” Second place ($3000)...
Nigerian publisher Masobe Books acquires 5 books by Bacon
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
Othuke Ominiabohs, founder and publisher of Masobe Books, has acquired Nigerian rights for five books by African-Australian author Eugen Bacon, in a deal brokered in partnership with Bacon’s US publisher...
Upswell acquires Nowra’s “My Grandfather’s Ghost”
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
Upswell Publishing has acquired world rights to My Grandfather’s Ghost, a narrative nonfiction title by Louis Nowra, via Natalie Stewart, HLA Management. Describing My Grandfather’s Ghost, Nowra said, “On 12...
Aaron wins 2026 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize
Monday, 30 March 2026
In the UK, Huw Aaron has won the 2026 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, worth £5000 (A$9657), for Sleep Tight, Disgusting Blob (Puffin), reports the Bookseller. Aaron’s is the second picture book...
S&S acquires Rogers’s “The Damned”
Monday, 30 March 2026
Simon & Schuster Australia (S&S) has acquired The Damned by Matt Rogers. Described as a “heart-pounding new thriller”, The Damned follows the author’s 2025 thriller The Forsaken and again features ex-assassin Logan...
Newcastle Writers Festival kicks off tomorrow
Thursday, 26 March 2026
Newcastle Writers Festival (NWF) runs from 27 to 29 March, with an opening night event featuring London-based Australian author Kathy Lette, who will reflect on “her writing career, resilience, and...
ABA 2026 conference program announced
Thursday, 26 March 2026
The Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) has released the program for its 2026 conference, to run from 13 to 15 June at in Canberra at the QT hotel (pictured). Sessions at...
Bakers Lane acquires Jones’s “Swimming Backwards”
Thursday, 26 March 2026
Bakers Lane Books has acquired world rights to the novel Swimming Backwards by Helen Jones. Swimming Backwards, which was shortlisted for the publisher’s inaugural Fearless Prize, tells the story of grieving...
Women’s Prize for Nonfiction 2026 shortlist announced
Thursday, 26 March 2026
In the UK, the shortlist for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Nonfiction, worth £30,000 (A$57,702) has been announced. The six shortlisted titles are: The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People’s History...
APA, ASA warn against copyright exceptions; Hachette, Sweatshop launch First Nations, CALD scholarship; Writers Victoria petition hits 10K signatures
Wednesday, 25 March 2026
In news this week, industry bodies including the Australian Publishers Association, Australian Society of Authors, and Copyright Agency have released a joint statement warning against expansions to copyright exceptions it...
Rights round-up
Wednesday, 25 March 2026
Sales Fiction Jane Novak Literary Agency has sold various rights to Prima Facie (Suzie Miller, Picador), with Greek rights to Antipodes, Estonian rights to Hea Lugu and Japanese rights to...
Text acquires Szubanski memoir
Wednesday, 25 March 2026
Text Publishing has announced the acquisition of the memoir I Can’t Tell You But I Will by Magda Szubanski. Szubanski is a comedian, actor and LGBT rights advocate. Her previous memoir,...
Shukman wins 2025 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award
Wednesday, 25 March 2026
In the UK, debut author Harry Shukman has won the £10,000 (A$19,224) Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award for Year of the Rat (Vintage), a “shocking, eye-opening...
HGCP acquires “The Everywhere Train”
Wednesday, 25 March 2026
Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing (HGCP) has acquired world rights to The Everywhere Train by author Deborah Frenkel and illustrator Danny Snell. From the creators of 2025 National Simultaneous Storytime book The...
BookUp conference and research day dates announced
Wednesday, 25 March 2026
The 2026 BookUp publishing conference will run in Melbourne on 22 July, the Australian Publishers Association (APA) has announced. Now in its sixth year, BookUp in 2026 “will focus on...
Local bookshop numbers double for 2026 “crawl”
Wednesday, 25 March 2026
Following the inaugural Global Book Crawl (GBC) in 2025, 140 Australian bookshops have signed up for this year’s event. In 2026, 12 separate book crawls will take place in Australia,...
Read the latest Publishers Weekly
Wednesday, 25 March 2026
Books+Publishing partners with US trade news magazine Publishers Weekly to provide our subscribers with exclusive access to the weekly digital edition of PW magazine. View the current edition.
No Hiding from the Woman in the Moon (Bruce Pascoe, Magabala)
Tuesday, 24 March 2026
Bruce Pascoe’s No Hiding from the Woman in the Moon is a quiet, contemplative collection that looks upward to the Moon while remaining firmly grounded in Country. The poems move...
Periodic Bitch (Emma Hardy, A&U)
Tuesday, 24 March 2026
In Periodic Bitch, Emma Hardy delivers a memoir that is both intellectually rigorous and literary in style, interrogating the cultural construction of the “female monster” alongside her lived experience of premenstrual...
The Fast Lane (Pip Harry, illus Katrin Dreiling, Larrikin)
Tuesday, 24 March 2026
The Fast Lane by Pip Harry (August & Jones, Because of You) is a lively and funny story about Daisy, a fast-swimming and competitive pig who struggles to share the...
Tearing Myself Together (Anna Whateley, A&U Children’s)
Tuesday, 24 March 2026
Anna Whateley’s raw, authentic representations of neurodivergent young women in Tearing Myself Together offer the kind of windows and mirrors that are still too rare in Australian young adult fiction....
The Enigmatic Echidna: Secrets of the World’s Most Curious Creature (Danielle Clode, Black Inc.)
Tuesday, 24 March 2026
In The Enigmatic Echidna: Secrets of the World’s Most Curious Creature, biologist and award-winning author Danielle Clode (Koala: A Life in Trees) draws readers into the fascinating world of one...
Capture (Amanda Lohrey, Text)
Tuesday, 24 March 2026
In Amanda Lohrey’s Capture, ageing psychiatrist James Mather is commissioned to research psychological explanations for alien capture experiences. His interviews with “experiencers” – whose stories he quickly finds to be...
The Greatest Goal in the Galaxy (Uranus FC #1) (Mick Elliott, Scholastic)
Tuesday, 24 March 2026
The Greatest Goal in the Galaxy is a fun start to a new series, with author and illustrator Mick Elliott (The Turners, Squidge Dibley) blending football, aliens and ever-popular gross-out...
