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Melbourne, Brisbane writers’ festival guests announced; new Australian digital marketplace launched

The programs for the Melbourne Writers Festival (25 August to 3 September) and Brisbane Writers Festival (6-10 September) have been announced. Both festivals regularly attract authors from around the world (this year’s line-ups include Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Risk, Reni Eddo-Lodge, Angie Thomas, Anosh Irani and Min Jin Lee) as well as plenty of home-grown talent. Two award-winning Indigenous Australian authors will be in the spotlight at this year’s festivals: Kim Scott will deliver the opening night address at MWF (his latest novel is Taboo); and BWF will celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Alexis Wright’s novel Carpentaria.

The Australian Society of Authors has launched a digital marketplace to showcase and sell the work of Australian writers to international publishers, agents and literary scouts. Alumni of the Australia Council’s Visiting International Publishers program have been invited to participate in the pilot program, which is open to authors who hold international rights to previously published work, or have a finished manuscript they’d like represented and published overseas.

In other rights news, former Penguin Random House and Five Mile Press rights manager Natasha Solomun has launched a new rights agency. The Rights Hive provides representation of foreign and subsidiary rights for Australian publishers and literary agents. Its clients already include literary agency Jacinta di Mase Management and children’s publishers Little Book Press, the National Library of Australia and Ford Street Publishing.

Finally, don’t forget to spread the word about this newsletter. If you have any colleagues who might be interested in signing up, please direct them to this link. You can view the first newsletter for adult titles here and the first newsletter for children’s/YA titles here.

Andrea Hanke
Editor
Think Australian
andrea.hanke@thorpe.com.au

 

Category: Think Australian editorial