BookPeople new CEO; Voss longlist; Bundyi Writing Prize; Books from abroad
Major news
BookPeople has named Susannah Bowen as incoming CEO, replacing Robbie Egan who will step down at the end of the year. Frankfurt Book Fair begins 15 October 2025 (local time) and runs to 19 October. Information on the Australian presence at the fair is available in Books+Publishing’s (B+P) Think Australian.
Local news
Local news this week included poet and editor Chris Tse named the 2025 Arts Queensland Malouf poet-in-residence; and the recently published Australian Public Libraries Statistical Report 2023–2024 showing a significant rise in Australians’ interactions with libraries, including physical visits and borrowing and program participation across the country’s 1717 library service points.
Awards
In awards announcements, Bundyi Publishing has revealed Shannon Barnes as the winner of the inaugural Bundyi Writing Prize for her mixed-genre novel Strangelands; the 2025 Voss Literary Prize longlist, awarded to the best novel published in Australia in the previous year, was announced; the Wilderness Society has announced the winners for the 2025 Environment Award for Children’s Literature and Karajia Award for Children’s Literature; and the shortlist for this year’s UNSW Press Bragg Prize for Science Writing was announced.
In Aotearoa New Zealand, Vincent O’Malley has won the 2025 Copyright Licensing New Zealand and the New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi O Aotearoa Writers’ Award, worth $25,000; Allen & Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand announced Tauranga writer Anne Cleary as the winner of the 2025 Fiction Prize for her entry Apple Man; and Waikato author Catherine Chidgey (The Book of Guilt, Penguin, 2025) has taken out the number-one spot in The Women’s Bookshop’s Top 50 Women Writers of the Last 50 Years survey.
Features
B+P shared the October Book Club choices for “compelling fiction to thought-provoking nonfiction”; Australian ISBN Agency representative Andrew Wrathall reported on this year’s ISBN AGM, hosted by Brazilian Book Chamber; and in the UNESCO City of Literature library series, B+P and the Melbourne UNESCO City of Literature Office spoke with Perpustakaan Jakarta Cikini.
Features this week also included books from abroad – nonfiction titles, fiction titles and children’s and young adult titles.
Acquisitions
In acquisitions news, Transit Lounge acquired world rights to High Land, a novel by Sarah Hawthorn, via Sally Bird at Calidris Literary Agency; Scribe acquired world rights to Hell Days, Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s nonfiction debut; and Bruna Papandera and Made Up Stories acquired television rights to JP Pomare’s crime-thriller novel 17 Years Later (Hachette).
Riveted Press has acquired world rights to middle-grade fantasy trilogy The Sterling Brothers by debut author Cody Hargreaves; Penguin Random House Australia (PRH) has acquired ANZ rights to The Lineup, a crime fiction debut by Nicholas Timms; Affirm Press has acquired world rights to I’m Not Mad (Anymore), a debut piece of nonfiction from Bron Lewis, in a deal brokered by Bec Sutherland of Jubilee St Management; Melbourne Books has acquired world rights to Fitzroy North: People, Place, Protest by Judith Buckrich; and Bakers Lane Books has acquired world rights to The Town Like No Other by Robert McLean.
World news
In news outside Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature for “his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art”; Stella Donovan won the inaugural Novelry Prize for her submission titled “Grace Labeille Is Turning 20 on Top of a Man Who Does Not Love Her and Will Not Date Her”; The International Publishers Association (IPA) launched the IPA Freedom of Expression Defenders Award; and in the UK, Bloomsbury Publishing launched a new range of titles in their Dyslexia-Friendly Editions.
In the US, Penguin Random House organised a “Banned Books Week Party” in the Washington and Philadelphia, reported Publishers Weekly; to celebrate Literary Hub’s 25th birthday, the organisation shared 58 books recommended by 42 writers, editors and booksellers; and in the UK, organisations including the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, Libraries Connected and Arts Council England launched the Libraries Alliance and called on the government to work with them to publish a new Vision for Libraries, reported the Bookseller.
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Category: This week’s news
