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Affirm acquires Saleh debut novel

Tuesday, 5 October 2021
Affirm Press has acquired world rights to Sara Saleh’s debut novel Songs for the Dead and the Living through the Affirm Press Mentorship for Sweatshop Writers. Saleh, an Arab-Australian human...

Ventura acquires Jacoby memoir

Monday, 4 October 2021
Ventura Press has acquired world rights to a memoir by television producer Anita Jacoby, Secrets Beyond the Screen. Jacoby was the producer of television shows including 60 Minutes, The Gruen...

Hereaka awarded 2021 NZSA Beatson Fellowship

Monday, 4 October 2021
Wellington-based novelist and playwright Whiti Hereaka has been awarded the 2021 New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) Peter & Dianne Beatson Fellowship, worth NZ$10,000 (A$9549). Hereaka will use the fellowship...

Canberra Writers Festival cancelled

Monday, 4 October 2021
The Canberra Writers Festival has announced the event will not go ahead in 2021. The announcement follows an earlier postponement of the festival due to Covid outbreaks. In a statement,...

Hazel Rowley fellowship increases to $20,000

Friday, 1 October 2021
Writers Victoria has announced the value of the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship will increase from $15,000 to $20,000 in 2022. Established in 2011 to encourage Australian authors to aim for...

Open Book internship pilot program to run in 2022

Friday, 1 October 2021
Open Book, a new paid internship aiming to increase cultural diversity in the Australian publishing workforce, has announced the details of its pilot program. After being announced late last year...

Hallifax appointed Walker Books publisher

Friday, 1 October 2021
Clare Hallifax has been appointed publisher of Walker Books Australia and New Zealand, replacing Linsay Knight, who has been in the role for five years. Hallifax was previously publisher at...

Aotearoa Book Trade Industry Awards 2021 winners announced

Thursday, 30 September 2021
The winners of the postponed 2021 Aotearoa Book Trade Industry Awards have been announced. The winners in each category are: Book publisher of the year Mākaro Press Emerging publisher of...

Pantera acquires nonfiction by Pickering, Ramo

Thursday, 30 September 2021
Pantera Press has acquired ANZ rights to The Mother of All Shocks by Karen Pickering, via Jacinta di Mase. The book was acquired by publisher Lex Hirst. The Mother of...

Wakefield acquires McAlister YA rom-com

Thursday, 30 September 2021
Wakefield Press has acquired world rights to Jodi McAlister’s YA rom-com Libby Lawrence is Good at Pretending, via Alex Adsett of Alex Adsett Literary. Libby Lawrence is Good at Pretending...

HarperCollins acquires Molloy’s ‘You Made Me This Way’

Wednesday, 29 September 2021
HarperCollins Australia has acquired ANZ rights to You Made Me This Way by journalist Shannon Molloy, in a deal brokered by Pippa Masson of Curtis Brown. Propelled by Molloy’s own...

Crime novel ‘The Whispering’ wins 2021 Banjo Prize

Wednesday, 29 September 2021
HarperCollins Australia has announced Veronica Lando as the winner of the 2021 Banjo Prize for her ‘hauntingly atmospheric mystery’ manuscript The Whispering. Lando’s crime novel was selected from a shortlist...

Voss Literary Prize 2021 longlist announced

Wednesday, 29 September 2021
The longlist for the 2021 Voss Literary Prize, awarded to the best novel published in Australia in the previous year, has been announced. The longlisted titles are: The Rain Heron...

Jennings wins British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer

Wednesday, 29 September 2021
Kathleen Jennings has won the Best Newcomer category in the 2021 British Fantasy Awards for her Australian gothic novel Flyaway (Picador). Jennings’ debut novel, chosen out of a shortlist of...

OUP launches new branding for digital transformation

Tuesday, 28 September 2021
Oxford University Press (OUP) has launched new branding to support its ongoing digital transformation. Under the new branding, the publisher will continue producing materials in its three core markets of...

MidnightSun announces book cover design competition

Tuesday, 28 September 2021
MidnightSun Publishing has announced a new book cover design competition for two of its forthcoming novels, Random Acts of Unkindness by Anna Mandoki and The Rider on the Bridge by...

McKay wins Arthur C Clarke Award

Tuesday, 28 September 2021
The Animals in that Country by Laura Jean McKay (Scribe) has won the UK's Arthur C Clarke Award for science fiction. McKay’s debut novel was selected from a shortlist of...

Scribner acquires Pearson’s ‘Chasing Wrongs and Rights’

Tuesday, 28 September 2021
Scribner Australia has acquired world rights to Chasing Wrongs and Rights, a work of nonfiction by Elaine Pearson, the Australia director at global organisation Human Rights Watch. The book was...

Nib Literary Award 2021 shortlist announced

Monday, 27 September 2021
The shortlist for the $20,000 Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award, known as ‘the Nib’, has been announced. The shortlisted books are: Only Happiness Here: In search of Elizabeth...

Performing arts bookshop relaunches online

Monday, 27 September 2021
Stage Whispers magazine has purchased performing arts specialist bookshop Book Nook, saving the business from closure and launching it as a new online store. Founded over 35 years ago, Book...

Shah Idil awarded $10k Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli Fellowship

Monday, 27 September 2021
Aisyah Shah Idil is the inaugural winner of the Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli Fellowship for Writers. Awarded by Perth’s Centre for Stories, the fellowship is for mid-career writers ‘in recognition of their...

Readings to open new Melbourne CBD shop

Thursday, 23 September 2021
Melbourne independent bookselling chain Readings has announced it will open a new, ‘light-filled’ shop in the Emporium shopping complex in Melbourne’s CBD. ‘It has been a tumultuous 18 months for...

Stivens wins 2022 Ray Koppe Fellowship

Thursday, 23 September 2021
Sarah Stivens has won the Australian Society of Authors' (ASA) 2022 Ray Koppe Young Writers Fellowship for her poetry manuscript ‘Therapeutic Discomfort’. ‘Therapeutic Discomfort’ is a work of 10 poems...

APA Indies Roadshow adds children’s/YA presentation

Thursday, 23 September 2021
The Australian Publishers Association (APA) will run its Indies Roadshow online again this year, on Wednesday, 29 September at 4.30pm AEST, following the inaugural virtual event held in response to...

$100k Historical Novel Prize shortlists announced

Wednesday, 22 September 2021
The Historical Novel Society Australasia (HNSA) has announced the shortlists for 2021 ARA Historical Novel Prize. The novels shortlisted in the adult category are: Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, River of Dreams (Anita Heiss,...