Milsom appointed AWW director; authors leave UQP over “Bila” cancellation; ABA Book of the Year shortlists
Rosemarie Milsom has been appointed director of Adelaide Writers’ Week; UQP authors, including Evelyn Araluen and Randa Abdel-Fattah, as well as UQP staff, have condemned the decision by the University of Queensland to cancel picture book Bila, a River Cycle; and Queensland University of Technology has appointed Ashley Hay in the role of establishing editor of Meanjin.
Awards
The Australian Booksellers Association has announced the shortlists for its 2026 Book of the Year Awards; Australian cartoonist Lee Lai has been shortlisted for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction; and James Cook University’s Roderick Centre for Australian Literature has announced the recipients of its Writers on the Reef residency.
Events
The Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tāmaki and the Publishers Association of New Zealand Te Rau o Tākupu will host an event to connect publishers and international festival directors at this year’s festival; while the Whitsundays Writers Festival has announced the program for its one-day event in 2026.
Rights
Wiley has acquired The One-Page Investing Plan by Scott Phillips; Melbourne Books has acquired Smack Talk: Turning Grief into a Movement by Wayne Holdsworth; HarperCollins has acquired nonfiction title Fifty Beating Wonders by Michelle Johnston; and Bakers Lane Books has acquired nonfiction title Holding Space by Gina Strauss.
In adaptations news, Amazon MGM Studios is developing a television series based on Australian author TL Swan’s Miles High Club romance novels; while filmmakers Jesse Laurie and Lewis Mulholland have optioned television rights to Pissants by Brandon Jack (Summit Books).
International news
In the UK, the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2026 shortlist has been announced; and TikTok has released its first monthly BookTok bestseller list for the market.
In the US, online bookselling site Bookshop.org has reported its 2025 revenue is up 55% compared to the previous year; and the Publishing Triangle, an association of LGBTQ+ people in publishing, has announced winners for the 2026 Publishing Triangle Awards.
Features
University of Melbourne researchers Beth Driscoll, Sandra Phillips and Claire Parnell tell Books+Publishing about the second Australian Publishing Industry Workforce Survey on Diversity and Inclusion, highlighting the importance of representative, quantitative data for Australian publishing; and Australian Book Industry Award sponsor Penguin Random House puts the spotlight on its Modern Australian Classics series.
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Category: The week that was
