Friday, 22 March 2013
The program for the 2013 Auckland Writers & Readers Festival, to be held between 15 and 19 May, has been released. New Zealand’s largest festival of ‘literature and ideas’ will...

Thursday, 21 March 2013
Penguin Australia has renamed its children’s division Penguin Young Readers. Penguin said in a statement that the name has been changed ‘to better reflect [the division’s] diverse range of print and digital...

Thursday, 21 March 2013
Griffith REVIEW  founding editor Julianne Schultz, Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) CEO Louise Adler, Text publisher Michael Heyward, Lonely Planet founders Maureen and Tony Wheeler and Black Inc. owner Morry Schwartz have...

Thursday, 21 March 2013
The finalists for the 2012 Aurealis Awards have been announced. Among the categories announced were:  Fantasy novel Bitter Greens (Kate Forsyth, Vintage) Stormdancer (Jay Kristoff, Tor UK) Sea Hearts (Margo...

Wednesday, 20 March 2013
The New Zealand Commerce Commission has cleared the proposed merger of Penguin and Random House. Commerce Commission chairman Mark Berry said in a statement on 19 March that ‘the commission...

Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Dymocks Children’s Charities (DCC) has launched a fundraising initiative for schools in NSW called Book Bonus. Book Bonus is an online read-a-thon in which students raise funds through sponsorship, with half of...

Wednesday, 20 March 2013
The Federal Government’s recently announced National Cultural Policy and $75.3 million boost in funding for the Australia Council has been well received by the book industry. However, details about how...

Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Sydney-based specialist publisher Millennium House is for sale. Millennium House founder and managing director Gordon Cheers told Books+Publishing that he has decided to sell the business, which publishes around 20...

Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Hardie Grant Egmont (HGE) has been appointed licensee of the Transformers brand in Australia and New Zealand. The publisher acquired the license after former licensee Ice Water Press was placed...

Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Sales Fiction—Scribe has licensed Spanish rights to The Low Road (Chris Womersley). Nonfiction—Black Inc. has sold Welcome to Your New Life (Anna Goldsworthy) to HarperCollins India (English language edition for...

Wednesday, 20 March 2013
‘The development of a National Cultural Policy is a golden opportunity for the Government to not just build the infrastructure of the future but to ensure that it can deliver...

Tuesday, 19 March 2013
Catherine McInnis has been appointed deputy editor of Melbourne-based literary journal Meanjin. McInnis, who also works for Melbourne University Publishing in the role of digital marketing assistant, started in the...

Tuesday, 19 March 2013
Alphabet Soup, a literary magazine for primary-school aged children, has closed. Launched in 2008, the quarterly magazine showcased children’s writing and artwork alongside that of adults, and had a subscriber...

Monday, 18 March 2013
Attendance figures at this year’s Adelaide Writers’ Week were ‘pretty consistent with last year’s numbers’, reported festival director Laura Kroetsch, who said that ‘some of the sessions ran to well...

Monday, 18 March 2013
A man and a boy step off a boat in a new country, where they must learn a new language and customs, and become ‘washed clean’ of their previous life—including their memories. J M Coetzee’s latest novel, The Childhood...

Thursday, 14 March 2013
‘70% interesting content relevant to our followers, 20% interaction with others and 10% self-promotion’—Alaina Gougoulis explains the maths behind Text Publishing’s approach to social media in an article on the...

Thursday, 14 March 2013
Businessman and arts patron James Strong has died in Sydney, aged 68. Strong was the chairman of the Australia Council for the Arts (OzCo) from 2006-2012. He also served as...

Wednesday, 13 March 2013
Walker Books Australia is celebrating 20 years of publishing books for children in 2013. The publisher said in a statement that it is celebrating the anniversary by launching the campaign ‘We Believe in...

Tuesday, 12 March 2013
Baker and loner Sage Singer befriends Josef Weber, an old man much loved by the community. One day Josef asks Sage for a favour—to kill him. Sage is shocked and refuses, but then she...