OverDrive acquires RBmedia’s library business
29 June 2020
Library provider OverDrive has announced it is acquiring RBmedia’s library business. The deal will see OverDrive acquire the RBdigital platform in the UK, US and Australia. RBmedia's other businesses, including...
Van Neerven, Sakr to host new UQP poetry podcast
29 June 2020
The University of Queensland Press (UQP) will launch its new monthly poetry podcast Extraordinary Voices for Extraordinary Times on 10 July. The podcast, supported by Copyright Agency funding, will be...
Federal government announces $250 million creative support package
26 June 2020
The federal government has announced a $250 million package to support the cultural and creative industries following the Covid-19 pandemic. The support comprises four components: $75 million in grants of...
Hachette acquires two new Lester books
26 June 2020
Hachette has acquired ANZ rights to two books by Natasha Lester to be published in 2022 and 2023. Hachette Australia acquired local rights as part of a global deal made...
Van Neerven awarded Civitella Ranieri Center Fellowship in Italy
26 June 2020
Ellen van Neerven has been awarded a Civitella Ranieri Center Fellowship in Italy. Van Neerven, the only Australian selected for the coming three years of the Fellowship, was awarded the...
Text acquires four additional Text Prize-shortlisted books
26 June 2020
Text Publishing has acquired world rights to four manuscripts that were shortlisted for the 2020 Text Prize, in addition to the winner, middle-grade novel Rainfish (Andrew Paterson). From the shortlist...
Wakefield acquires Haghdoosti’s debut YA novel ‘Sunburnt Veils’
26 June 2020
Wakefield Press has acquired ANZ and UK rights to Sara Haghdoosti's debut YA novel Sunburnt Veils. Sunburnt Veils is a character-based exploration of Islamophobia through a heroine who’s the kind...
Australian publishing workers share salaries to promote wage transparency
25 June 2020
A spreadsheet inviting Australian publishing workers to share their salaries is circulating on social media. At the time of writing, 42 staff have entered information including their job title, wage,...
ABA 2020 Bookseller of the Year shortlists announced
25 June 2020
The Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) has announced the shortlists for 2020 ABA Bookseller of the Year. The shortlisted booksellers in each category are: Bookseller of the Year Michael Earp, The...
Copyright Agency announces recipients of $350k in Cultural Fund grants
25 June 2020
Twenty-five arts organisations have received a total of $352,773 in the latest round of funding from the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund. The grants cover the first two rounds of funding...
Shaw runner-up in 2020 Desperate Literature Prize for Short Fiction
25 June 2020
New Zealand writer Jenah Shaw has been named a runner-up for the Madrid-based Desperate Literature Prize for Short Fiction for her story 'Goodness and the Tiger', while fellow Wellington writer...
Taylor & Francis acquires A&U academic lists
24 June 2020
Taylor & Francis Books has acquired Allen & Unwin’s (A&U) academic and professional books lists, which represent over 700 titles in the humanities and social science disciplines. In a statement,...
Hardie Grant acquires Ablett autobiography
24 June 2020
Hardie Grant Books has acquired world rights to AFL player Gary Ablett Jr’s autobiography. The fully illustrated book will include guest chapters from his father Gary Ablett Sr, Geelong captain...
Age/SMH seeks ‘greater diversity of applicants’ for book critic roles
24 June 2020
The Nine-owned Age and Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) newspapers will reopen applications for two book critics, following the resignation of Jack Callil and Bec Kavanagh. Kavanagh and Callil jointly resigned from...
Kavanagh and Callil resign as emerging critics over lack of diversity
23 June 2020
Book critics Bec Kavanagh and Jack Callil have jointly announced their resignation from the Copyright Agency-funded emerging critics initiative, due to the lack of diversity of the applicants selected for...
Footprint Books to close
23 June 2020
Distributor Footprint Books has announced it is closing at the end of October 2020. 'It is with great sadness that we announce the closure of Footprint Books,' co-director Kate O'Reilly...
First Nations and People of Colour Writers Count research commences
22 June 2020
The organisers of the First Nations and People of Colour Writers Count have announced that research for the project has commenced. Following a successful crowdfunding campaign that raised $26,559, the...
BWF appoints Runcie as CEO, confirms festival will run in May 2021
22 June 2020
Brisbane Writers Festival (BWF) has appointed Sarah Runcie as CEO and confirmed the festival will run in May 2021. Runcie, formerly strategy and policy manager at the Australian Publishers Association,...
Fremantle Press acquires ‘Unlimited Futures’ anthology
22 June 2020
Fremantle Press will publish a new anthology, Unlimited Futures: Speculative, Visionary Blak+Black Fiction, to provide ‘the chance for established and emerging First Nations writers and Black writers to share the...
Hind wins £10,000 Betty Trask Prize for ‘Hitch’
19 June 2020
Kathryn Hind has been awarded the £10,000 (A$18,100) UK Society of Authors’ Betty Trask Prize for her novel Hitch (Hamish Hamilton). Judge Elanor Dymott said the book was ‘an extraordinary...
White departs UWA Publishing
19 June 2020
UWA Publishing director Terri-ann White has left the publisher after 14 years, as the future direction of the organisation remains unconfirmed. ‘I finished my fourteen years as publisher at UWA...
Tan wins 2020 Kate Greenaway Medal
18 June 2020
In the UK, Australian artist and author Shaun Tan has won the 2020 Kate Greenaway Medal for distinguished illustration in a book for children and young people for his picture...
Sales of Bluey books hit 1 million copies
18 June 2020
Sales of Bluey children's books have reached 1 million copies in Australia, the series’ publisher Penguin Random House Australia (PRH) has announced. The first three Bluey titles, which launched in...
Juchau wins 2020 Walkley-Pascall Prize for arts criticism
18 June 2020
Novelist, essayist and critic Mireille Juchau has won the 2020 Pascall Prize for arts criticism for her essays ‘How Dreams Change Under Authoritarianism’ (The New Yorker), 'Twilight Knowing: Jenny Offill’s...
Hachette acquires Lau’s ‘Gunk Baby’
18 June 2020
Hachette Australia has acquired ANZ rights to the novel Gunk Baby by Jamie Marina Lau. Hachette head of literary Robert Watkins said he is excited to be publishing the novel,...
Miles Franklin Literary Award 2020 shortlist announced
17 June 2020
The shortlist for the $60,000 Miles Franklin Literary Award 2020 has been announced. The six longlisted novels are: The White Girl (Tony Birch, UQP) Islands (Peggy Frew, A&U) No One (John Hughes, UWA...
Billie B Brown optioned for TV
17 June 2020
Fremantle and development partner 720 Creative have acquired screen rights to the children’s book character Billie B Brown, from the junior fiction series written by Sally Rippin, illustrated by Aki...
Pantera Press Foundation donates $85k in FY2020
17 June 2020
Pantera Press has announced the company has donated $85,000 via the Pantera Press Foundation this financial year. Its donations include a total of $70,000 in untied funding to arts organisations...
Creative Vic Sustaining Creative Workers grants announced
17 June 2020
Creative Victoria has announced the first recipients of its Sustaining Creative Workers initiative, created as part of the Victorian Government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Initially announced in April as...
Latest ArtsACT grant recipients announced
16 June 2020
ArtsACT has announced the successful recipients of its Homefront funding round, which was developed to support individual artists in response to the impact of Covid-19 on the arts sector. Funding...
