Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

Image. Advertisement:

Interview >

Cristy Burne on ‘Ultra Violet’ 

19 March 2024
Cristy Burne is an award-winning author of children's books published worldwide. She loves mixing science, adventure and creativity in her stories; holds degrees in biotechnology and science communication; and has...

Shankari Chandran on ‘Safe Haven’ 

12 March 2024
Australian Tamil lawyer and author Shankari Chandran, who won the 2023 Miles Franklin Award for her novel Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens (Ultimo), returns with her fourth novel, Safe Haven (Ultimo,...

Bri Lee on ‘The Work’ 

27 February 2024
Bri Lee is a celebrated author, academic and activist known for nonfiction titles Eggshell Skull (2018), Beauty (2019) and Who Gets to Be Smart (2021). Her debut fiction novel, The...

Stuart Kells on ‘Alice™’ 

13 February 2024
Stuart Kells (co-author of Sold Down the River, author of Penguin and the Lane Brothers: The untold story of a publishing revolution) is an adjunct professor at La Trobe University’s...

Anton Clifford-Motopi on ‘To and Fro’ 

9 January 2024
Anton Clifford-Motopi is a Brisbane-based author who likes to write stories that make children laugh. Books+Publishing reviewer Emma Pei Yin described his debut novel, To and Fro (A&U Children, March),...

Sharlene Allsopp on ‘The Great Undoing’ 

28 November 2023
Sharlene Allsopp's debut novel, The Great Undoing (Ultimo, February 2024), 'is a remarkable book that reaches back into the early 20th century and forwards into the future to examine discontinuities...

Victoria Carless on ‘Lani and the Universe’ 

14 November 2023
Victoria Carless is a Brisbane-based author who has written for middle-grade readers and young adults, and for theatre. Her debut novel, The Dream Walker (Hachette, 2017), was nominated for the Queensland...

Yumna Kassab on ‘Politica’ 

31 October 2023
Yumna Kassab is a writer from Western Sydney. She is the author of The House of Youssef (Giramondo, 2019), Australiana (Ultimo, 2022), and The Lovers (Ultimo, 2022). She has been listed...

Sara M Saleh on ‘The Flirtation of Girls’ 

24 October 2023
Sara M Saleh is an award-winning human rights lawyer and author. She follows her debut novel, Songs for the Dead and the Living (Affirm, 2023), with her first published poetry...

Michelle Upton on ‘Emergency Exit Only’ 

17 October 2023
Originally hailing from Birmingham, England, Michelle Upton now calls the Redlands Coast in Queensland home. Her debut novel Terms of Inheritance (HarperCollins, 2022) was shortlisted for the 2021 Banjo Prize,...

Lucy Treloar on ‘Days of Innocence and Wonder’ 

26 September 2023
Lucy Treloar's Salt Creek (Picador, 2015) claimed the Dobbie Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the UK's Walter Scott Prize, while her second novel,...

Beverley McWilliams on ‘Spies in the Sky’ 

6 September 2023
Beverley McWilliams is a children's writer based in South Australia who loves sharing history with children. Books+Publishing reviewer Karys McEwen describes her new book, Spies in the Sky (Pantera, November),...

Giselle Clarkson on ‘The Observologist’ 

22 August 2023
Giselle Clarkson is an illustrator and comic artist based in Greytown, Aotearoa New Zealand, and is best known for her nonfiction comics on conservation and environmental topics. Books+Publishing reviewer Karys...

Suzie Miller on ‘Prima Facie’ 

8 August 2023
Suzie Miller is a playwright, screenwriter and novelist who splits her time between the UK and Sydney. Prima Facie (Picador, September) is an adaptation of her smash-hit one-woman play, which...

Kate Mildenhall on ‘The Hummingbird Effect’ 

18 July 2023
Kate Mildenhall is a Melbourne-based writer whose first book, Skylarking, was longlisted for the Voss Literary Prize and Indie Book Awards. Her second novel was the widely lauded The Mother Fault. Her latest, The...

Isolde Martyn & Robyn Ridgeway on ‘Country Town’ 

12 July 2023
Historian and novelist Isolde Martyn and First Nations author Robyn Ridgeway have collaborated on a history of an imagined Australian country town, decade-by-decade from 1922 to the present day, illustrated...

Gabbie Stroud on ‘The Things That Matter Most’ 

27 June 2023
Gabbie Stroud is a self-professed 'recovering teacher' and author of the bestselling Teacher (2018, A&U) based in Merimbula, NSW. Her new adult novel, The Things That Matter Most (A&U, August), is an...

Maree Coote on ‘Letters for Lunch’ 

20 June 2023
Maree Coote is a celebrated Melbourne-based publisher, author and illustrator known for her captivating and intricately detailed illustrations. She won the coveted Bologna Ragnazzi 2017 Special Mention Prize for her...

Carl Merrison on ‘Backyard Footy’ 

11 April 2023
Hailing from Halls Creek, children's author Carl Merrison won a 2020 black&write! fellowship to develop his 'Backyard Sports' picture book series. The first book, Backyard Footy (illus by Samantha Campbell,  Lothian,...

Megan Rogers on ‘The Heart is a Star’ 

15 March 2023
Megan Rogers' debut novel, The Heart is a Star (HarperCollins, May), centres on a middle-aged anaesthetist, Layla, who is juggling her career, family and love life when she must travel to Tasmania...

Dominic Smith on ‘Return to Valetto’

24 January 2023
Return to Valetto (A&U, March) is Seattle-based Australian expat Dominic Smith's sixth novel. Set in a fictional semi-abandoned Italian town, the book excavates the town's mysteries and explores the lives of the...

Laura McPhee-Browne on ‘Little Plum’

9 November 2022
Little Plum (Text, February) is Laura McPhee-Browne's second novel after her 2020 debut Cherry Beach. Reviewer Danielle Bagnato describes Little Plum as a sincere character study of 29-year-old protagaonist Coral, who...

Meg Foster on ‘Boundary Crossers’ 

10 August 2022
Meg Foster is a historian of banditry, settler colonial and public history; her new book Boundary Crossers (NewSouth, November) explores the lives of four lesser-known Australian bushrangers. Described by reviewer...

Tracey Lien on ‘All That’s Left Unsaid’

12 July 2022
Tracey Lien's debut novel All That's Left Unsaid (HQ Fiction, September) blends a murder-mystery with a 'raw and honest' exploration of the Vietnamese-Australian experience in the late 90s. Reviewer Anthea Yang, who...

Sophie Cunningham on ‘This Devastating Fever’

15 June 2022
This Devastating Fever (Ultimo, September) is Sophie Cunningham's first novel in more than a decade. The novel interweaves the story of Leonard and Virginia Woolf and their friends in the Bloomsbury...

Claire G Coleman on ‘Enclave’

24 May 2022
Described by reviewer Stefan Brazulaitis as Brave New World for the smartphone generation, Enclave (Hachette, July), Claire G Coleman's third novel, centres on a young woman who lives in the walled city...