Tuesday, 20 May 2008
This year's Sydney Writers Festival officially kicked off with an address by Jeanette Winterson at the Sydney Opera House last night, with an opening party held later in a newly re-purposed space at Pier...

Tuesday, 20 May 2008
To see the details of all the international booktrade stories we've noted in the past week, see our Around the World blog. 

Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Somewhat predictably, Tim Winton's Breath hit number one in the Bestsellers and Fastest Movers charts this week. Fellow Australian icon, albeit in the musical sense, Jimmy Barnes' self-titled book came...

Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Trade events coming up over the next week, as shown on our events calendar, include: Sydney Writers' Festival, Sydney, 19-25 MayAPA Book Design Awards presentation, Sydney, 22 May'Story of the...

Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Mary Dalmau manager of Reader's Feast writes on the passing of Nuala O'Faolain: 'When Nuala O'Faolain visited our bookstore in Melbourne, Australia on the release of her book, Are You...

Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Michelle de Kretser pocketed $50,000 at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards on Monday, winning both the Christina Stead Prize for fiction ($40,000) and Book of the Year ($10,000) for her third...

Tuesday, 20 May 2008
The autobiography of convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby is be released overseas and on Amazon by Mainstream Publishing. Proceeds from My Story (Pan Macmillan) were frozen last year after the...

Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Sonya Hartnett flies to Sweden this week to collect the Astrid Lingren Memorial Award--and around A$844,000--from HRH Crown Princess Victoria in a lavish awards ceremony. The fuss won’t stop there for...

Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Total prize money across the 11 award categories in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards has been doubled to $290,000, the state’s arts minister announced at the awards on Monday night.‘It is appropriate that the...

Tuesday, 20 May 2008
More Ozlit in NSW schools?Future NSW Year 10 students will have to have studied at least four Australian books, poems or plays under changes proposed by state education minister, John...

Monday, 19 May 2008
The Australia Council for the Arts has announced changes to make the travel funding it provides to publishers ‘more flexible.' BOOKED: International Travel Fund for Publishers and Literary Agents is...

Monday, 19 May 2008
The overall winners of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prizes were announced on Sunday 18 May at the Franschloek Literary Festival in South Africa. The Book of Negroes by Canadian author...

Tuesday, 13 May 2008
The ABC has flatly denied a report in the Sydney Morning Herald that it would be closing its 43 stores around Australia. The report in the SMH and the Age...

Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Several big names are in the running for the Australian Literary Society's 2008 Gold Medal. The award for an 'outstanding Australian literary work', which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year,...

Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Tim Winton's lauded Breath gets pipped at the post by the relentless 4 Ingredients in the Bestseller charts this week, though it does come first in the Highest New Entries....

Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Trade events coming up over the next week, as shown on our events calendar, include: Last day of the International Publishers Association's 28th Congress, Seoul, 15 MayAuckland Readers and Writers...

Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Charles Ellis, who served as president and CEO of John Wiley & Sons from 1990 to 1998, has died aged 72.

Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Irish journalist and memoirist Nuala O’Faolain has died in Dublin aged 68. Her novels included My Dream of You and The Story of Chicago May.

Tuesday, 13 May 2008
The public now has a chance to vote for ‘The Best of the Booker' after the shortlist for the one-off celebratory award was released on Monday 12 May. Overlooking the...

Tuesday, 13 May 2008
The Five Mile Press has issued an urgent recall of the title Killer in the Family by true crime author Lindy Cameron. The book explores 19 criminal cases including that...

Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Victoria may not be too far away from its own Hay on Wye. Currently boasting five bookshops for its 1000 residents, the picturesque Gold Rush town of Clunes is aiming...

Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Only six books were entered in this year's $7500 Kathleen Mitchell Award for Young Writers, which was won by Randa Abdel-Fattah for Ten Things I Hate about Me (Pan). The novel...

Tuesday, 13 May 2008
The author of The Honey Spinner (Murdoch Books), a nonfiction look at honey production around the world, has won the Watermark Fellowship. Grace Pundyk will spend six weeks as a...

Tuesday, 13 May 2008
New literary agency opens in SydneyA new literacy agency was launched in Sydney this week by the novelist and former Hickson Associates literary agent, Gaby Maher. The Naher Agency will...

Tuesday, 13 May 2008
‘Large publishers are in a position to become better booksellers than some retailers, and this will be increasingly apparent with the take-up of electronic content.'--Andrew Crawford, managing director of online...

Monday, 12 May 2008
Among the items added to our Around the World blog this week:Borders UK chief upbeat about the future of printUK booksellers attack 'green excuse' on publishers' firm-sale plansDigital experimentation pays...

Wednesday, 7 May 2008
Paul Kenny, marketing director at Pan Macmillan, has announced his resignation. Kenny, who has been at Pan Macmillan for 14 years ‘almost to the day’ will finish at the publisher...

Tuesday, 6 May 2008
The APA celebrated its 60th anniversary last Wednesday, with a special dinner in Sydney. At the dinner, 21 publishing figures were honoured in the inaugural George Robertson Awards. Named after...