Text acquires 2016 Vic Prem’s Unpublished Manuscript winner

Text Publishing has acquired world rights to the short-story collection Australia Day by Melanie Cheng, the winner of the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, in a two-book deal negotiated with Clare Forster at Curtis Brown.

Australia Day is a collection of short stories of varying lengths that explores contemporary Australian society and the search for human connection.

Text publisher Michael Heyward said the collection makes ‘a crucial contribution to a broader conversation about who we are and how we live’. ‘Melanie’s greatest strength is the chameleon-like quality of her work, the way she is able to evoke contemporary Australian society both as an insider and an outsider,’ said Heyward.

Cheng, a Melbourne doctor, told Books+Publishing she is delighted with the book deal. ‘Michael Heyward and all the team at Text have been so supportive of the manuscript and have shown enormous faith in my writing from day one,’ she said.

Australia Day is scheduled for publication in 2017.

Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions