Productivity Commission report; El-Zein wins National Biography Award; PANZ Publishing Market Size Report

Headlining the news this week, the Australian government Productivity Commission’s (PC) current Harnessing Data and Digital Technology inquiry released an interim report, which called for feedback on ‘the issue of copyrighted materials being used to train AI models’.

In bookshop news, Melbourne’s the Little Bookroom’s new owner, Michael Earp, announced a crowdfunding campaign to cover the costs of moving the bookshop to a new location, which, at the time of this writing, has reached over half its goal; and during the Collins Booksellers Annual Conference in Melbourne, Collins Booksellers Warrnambool (Michaelie Clark and Graeme Gallagher) was named 2025 Franchisee of the Year.

Across the Tasman, the Publishers Association of New Zealand/Te Rau o Tākupu (PANZ) announced four new council members, with one space remaining vacant and shared its Publishing Market Size Report, showing $282.3 million total publishing revenue last year in Aotearoa New Zealand, up slightly at 0.4% on 2023 amid an economy ‘still marked by a consumer cost of living crisis’.

The Berry Agency announced the agency will expand to include literary representation in October 2025; and Together We Read AU announced that the fifth annual online bookclub, running 12–26 August 2025, will read Smoke by Michael Brissenden (Affirm).

This week in awards, Bullet, Paper, Rock: A Memoir of Words and Wars (Abbas El-Zein, Upswell) won the $25,000 National Biography Award; Mohammed Massoud Morsi won the 2025 Dorothy Hewett Award for his fiction manuscript The Hair of the Pigeon; the 2025 Australian Book Review (ABR) Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize ($6000) winner was announced as Victorian writer Tara Sharman for ‘Shelling’ – and at 22, Sharman is the youngest recipient in the prize’s history. Griffith Review announced the winners of its 2025 Emerging Voices competition; and the State Library of Queensland announced Sam Quyên Huỳnh as the winner of the 2025 Young Writers Award.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, the Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi announced Josh Morgan (Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Rongowhakaata, Te Whānau-a-Kai) as the 2025 recipient of the $30,000 Mallinson Rendel Illustrators Award.

James Cook University’s Foundation for Australian Literary Studies announced the shortlist for the $50,000 Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award; and the longlist for the $40,000 Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award was also announced.

In Books+Publishing (B+P) features this week, Fremantle press digital publicist Bianca Breen shared her reflections on with the Big Day of Books Perth, which included six sessions, and ran on 28 June 2025; and the B+P Junior Bookclub highlighted 10 new titles perfect for classrooms, libraries and family reading time. Two new tinsel time features were published this week – forthcoming nonfiction titles and children’s and young adult titles recommended for the gifting season. B+P reviewer Karys McEwen spoke with Sarah Brill on Brill’s upcoming young adult debut, Catch (A&U Children’s, October) and Brill recommended Kate Grenville’s Unsettled and Helen Garner’s The Season.

In celebration of 90 years of publishing, University of Western Australia Publishing communications officer Lauren Pratt spoke to B+P about the history, the present, and the future of the press.

Several festivals announced their programs this week: BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival, running 11–13 September; the Victorian Port Fairy Literary Weekend, which runs 12–14 September; Stella Day Out Melbourne, running on 18 August; and Children’s Book Council of Australia announced Children’s Book Week Birthday Book Adventure events, running 16–23 August 2025, to celebrate Book Week’s 80th birthday.

Looking into 2026, literary organisation and magazine Island announced the inaugural Island Readers and Writers Festival to be held in Nipaluna (Hobart) on 9 May–1 June 2026 and is currently seeking expressions of interest.

In further local news, the Conversation reported on the Australian Historical Association’s (AHA) open letter signed by over 100 Australians with Bachelor of Arts degrees, including multiple writers, urging ‘Anthony Albanese to abolish the Morrison government’s widely condemned Job-Ready Graduates package and establish an equitable university fee system that “does not punish students who choose to study the humanities and social sciences”’. Signatories include Nam Le, Helen Garner, Tim Flannery, Megan Davis, Tim Winton and Kate Grenville.

US singer and songwriter Dua Lipa has picked Helen Garner’s This House of Grief (Text) as Lipa’s August bookclub read and has since organised an interview with Garner, reported Crikey.

In acquisition news, Transit Lounge acquired world rights to SD Hinton’s new crime novel, Inlet Bridge, via Sarah McKenzie Literary Management; Larrikin House acquired world rights to picture book What Can I Get For Mother’s Day? written by Renae Hayward and illustrated by Susan Joy Lu; UQP acquired world rights to the debut poetry collection After War by Dženana Vucic; and Allen & Unwin acquired world English rights to How Will I Ever Get Through This? by Lucy Hone, in a deal brokered by Catherine Drayton at InkWell Management.

Overseas, Informa has published its half-year results, with a ‘20%+ reported revenue growth, increasing operating margins and confirming £150m of additional share buybacks,’ reported BookBrunch; and UK educational publisher Pearson reported a stable financial performance for the first half of 2025, according to the Bookseller. Penguin Random House (PRH) Southeast Asia (SEA) announced the publication of Stories from the Islands, its first bilingual short story anthology of writers selected as part of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF) emerging writers program.

A possible conflict of interest was raised over Sex and the City actor Sarah Jessica Parker’s judging of this year’s Booker prize, reported the Guardian. One of the 2025 longlisted novels, Love Forms (Claire Adam, Faber), could be in the development process with a production company owned by Parker, according to the Guardian. The National Centre for Writing in the UK announced the language offerings for its 2025-26 Emerging Translator Mentorships, reported BookBrunch. This year the mentorships will include a new strand focusing on the Languages of India, launched alongside the Charles Wallace India Trust. The mentorships aim to support ‘the professional development of emerging literary translators working into English, particularly from languages that are currently under-represented in English-language publishing’, according to organisers.

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Category: This week’s news