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Creative Victoria announces new VicArts recipients

Thursday, 19 May 2016
Creative Victoria has announced the latest round of VicArts Grants recipients. The program will provide $1.6m in funding for 96 creative projects by independent artists and arts organisations in Victoria....

Tennant wins 2016 Finch Memoir Prize

Thursday, 19 May 2016
Mary Tennant has won the 2016 Finch Memoir Prize, worth $10,000, for her manuscript I Knew You’d Have Brown Eyes. The publisher said Tennant’s manuscript is ‘a powerful story about...

ABIA People’s Choice Awards winners announced

Wednesday, 18 May 2016
The winners of the 2016 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) reader’s choice awards have been announced. The winners in each category are: General fiction book of the year Close Your...

NZ publisher Book Island moves headquarters to UK 

Wednesday, 18 May 2016
Children’s book publisher Book Island has announced it is moving its headquarters from Raumati South, New Zealand to Bristol, England in order to expand the publisher’s UK business. Book Island,...

First authors announced for Byron Writers Festival

Wednesday, 18 May 2016
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist William Finnegan and novelist and memoirist Cheryl Strayed are among the first guests announced for the 20th Byron Writers Festival, which runs from 5-7 August....

ABA Booksellers of the Year 2016 finalists announced

Friday, 13 May 2016
The finalists for the 2016 Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) Booksellers of the Year awards have been announced. The finalists for the Bookseller of the Year award are: Annie Grossman, Annie’s...

MUP sells film rights to ‘Modern Love’

Friday, 13 May 2016
Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) has sold the film rights to Modern Love: The Lives of John and Sunday Reed (Kendrah Morgan & Lesley Harding) to Richard Keddie of The Film...

Text to publish new Simsion, Grenville books 

The Best of Adam Sharp cover Thursday, 12 May 2016
Text has acquired world rights to new books by Graeme Simsion and Kate Grenville, to be released in September 2016 and early 2017 respectively. Simsion’s The Best of Adam Sharp,...

Perth bookstore Bookcaffe to close in June

Thursday, 12 May 2016
Independent Perth bookstore Bookcaffe is closing at the end of June. In a post on the store’s website, owners James and Rose Caffey said ‘it is with heavy hearts that...

S&S expands sales team to service independents, NZ 

Wednesday, 11 May 2016
Simon & Schuster has expanded its local sales team to service independent booksellers, and has appointed Karen Ferns, former joint-MD of Random House Australia and NZ, to the newly created...

EWF 2016 program launched

Wednesday, 11 May 2016
The program for the 2016 Emerging Writers’ Festival, to be held in Melbourne from 14-24 June, has been announced. The 2016 festival will open with a ‘Storytelling Slam’ featuring four...

Former Lantern designers open studio OetomoNew

Wednesday, 11 May 2016
Former Lantern designers Daniel New and Evi Oetomo have opened a Sydney-based studio ‘devoted to designing beautiful books’, called OetomoNew. New was previously art director and Evi Oetomo was senior...

Daisley wins New Zealand Book Award for fiction

Wednesday, 11 May 2016
Novelist Stephen Daisley has won the NZ$50,000 (A$46,135) fiction prize at the New Zealand Book Awards for his novel Coming Rain (Text), announced at a ceremony in Auckland on 10...

Christian wins 2016 Text Prize

Wednesday, 11 May 2016
Playwright and former teacher Claire Christian has won the 2016 Text Prize for YA and Children’s Writing for her manuscript Beautiful Mess. The winning manuscript, which was shortlisted under the...

Feminist Writers Festival announced for Melbourne

Tuesday, 10 May 2016
A new Feminist Writers Festival (FWF) has been established and will partner with the Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF) in its inaugural year. The festival, co-founded by academic Cristy Clark and...

Australia Council February grants announced

Tuesday, 10 May 2016
Seventeen literary organisations and almost 40 writers and writing groups have received Australia Council grants as part of its $11.2m February grants round. The 17 literary organisations received a combined...

SWF receives $460k grant in second Catalyst funding round

Tuesday, 10 May 2016
The Sydney Writers’ Festival (SWF) has received a $461,350 Catalyst grant for its Western Sydney and regional NSW touring program to ‘boost accessibility to reading and literature’ among children of...

Wood awarded $100,000 Charles Perkins Centre fellowship

Monday, 9 May 2016
Author Charlotte Wood has been awarded the University of Sydney’s $100,000 Charles Perkins Centre Writer in Residence fellowship. As previously reported by Books+Publishing, the university announced the fellowship for a...

New Zealand YA review site launches

Friday, 6 May 2016
A group of New Zealand writers and editors associated with the journal New Zealand Books Pukapuka Aotearoa have launched a website for reviewing and discussing New Zealand YA books. Hooked...