Pink Shorts acquires Adameitis’s “Australianarama”, De Zilva’s “Sick Note”
Pink Shorts Press has acquired world rights to Australianarama: A Campendium of Kitsch by artist and designer Stavroula Adameitis, also known as Frida Las Vegas, and poetry collection Sick Note by Olivia De Zilva.
Pink Shorts said Adameitis’s book, to be published in full-colour hardback, “is a celebration of weird, wonderful and distinctly Australian things from decades past, with illustrations from Stav along with archival photography and interviews with ‘kitsch-sperts’ such as Tony Albert and Art Simone”.
Publisher Margot Lloyd said, “It was a dream come true to work with Stav on this book. We loved her visual world, but it was her writing that really blew us away. This is such a fun book, but it also has some really smart things to say about what nostalgia is for, who gets to define Australiana, and what kitsch might look like in our more globalised future. It’s the ultimate stocking stuffer or Father’s Day surprise.”
De Zilva, whose debut novel Plastic Budgie was named one of the ABC’s best books for 2025, turns to poetry with Sick Note, “a lament on semi-permanent employment, Temu capitalism and chronic illness, filled with hilarious references to Li-Shang from Mulan and Guy Sebastian’s ‘Angels’,” according to the publisher.
Publisher Emily Hart said, “We know firsthand that Olivia can bring the house down at a poetry reading – it is the form where her creativity with language and her unhinged humour really come into their own, but somehow she delivers so many emotional hits among the laughs. This incredible collection is poetry for people who don’t think they like poetry, although we also hope that poetry people love it too.”
Pink Shorts also announced the forthcoming re-release of the late Moya Costello’s novel The Office as a Boat, originally published in 2000. The new edition will have an introduction from South Australian London-based author Holly Gramazio, whose debut The Husbands is currently being adapted into an Apple TV series.
Pink Shorts Press plans to publish Australianarama and Sick Note in September.
Category: Local news Rights and acquisitions
