Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Among the many international booktrade stories added to our Around the World blog in the past week:Monbiot: academic publishing is 'pure rentier capitalism' and 'economic parisitism' B&N: digital sales up...

Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Arts Tasmania has discontinued its funding of Tasmanian literary journal Island Magazine. Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings, who is also the state's Arts Minister, announced the funding cut yesterday, and also...

Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Bookshops, schools and libraries around Australia celebrated Children's Book Week, which wrapped up on the weekend, having run from 20 to 26 August.Organised by the Children’s Book Council of Australia...

Tuesday, 30 August 2011
A Centre for the Book will be established at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, reports Beattie's Book Blog. The University will join a network of other Centres...

Tuesday, 30 August 2011
One Day (David Nicholls, Hachette), a novel about friendship and love spanning two decades, now adapted to film, is at the top of the fastest movers chart and fourth on...

Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Romance writer Sandra Hyde (published as Sandra Hyatt), has died in Auckland aged 46. Hyde was attending the Romance Writers New Zealand (RWNZ) conference, when she became ill and later...

Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Samuel Menashe, American poet and recipient of the Poetry Foundation's Neglected Masters Award, has died aged 86. Menashe's books include No Jerusalem But This (1971), The Niche Narrows (2000) and...

Tuesday, 30 August 2011
William Bridson Green, novelist and writer of screenplays and theatre pieces, has died aged 71.Green helped found the creative writing course at RMIT, where he specialised in screenwriting. His novels include...

Tuesday, 30 August 2011
James Sangster British screenwriter best known for screenwriting the 1950s classic horror films The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Horror of Dracula (1958), and The Mummy (1959), has died aged 83. 

Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Further to its announcement that it was ‘monitoring' the proposed acquisition of the UK-based online book retailer the Book Depository by Amazon, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has announced...

Tuesday, 30 August 2011
A Merciless Place: The Lost Story of Britain's Convict Disaster in Africa and how it led to the Settlement of Australia by Emma Christopher (A&U) and A Three-Cornered Life: The Historian W...

Monday, 29 August 2011
The winners of the 24th Australian Family Therapists' Awards for Children's Literature have been announced. The winner of the main prize, worth $1000, is Diary of a Would-Be Princess 3...

Monday, 29 August 2011
2011 Get Reading! campaign launchedThis year's Get Reading! campaign, which will run until 30 September, was officially launched this week. A new website for the campaign has been launched and features an...

Sunday, 28 August 2011
The shortlisted titles for this year's New South Wales Premier's History Awards have been announced. The shortlisted titles in the book-related categories, each worth $15,000, are:Australian History PrizeColonial Voices: A...

Sunday, 28 August 2011
The winners of the 2011 Age Book of the Year awards were announced on 25 August at the opening keynote address of the Melbourne Writers Festival. Indelible Ink (Fiona McGregor, Scribe) won the...

Sunday, 28 August 2011
There Goes the Neighbourhood: Australia and the Rise of Asia by Michael Wesley (NewSouth) has won this year's John Button Prize for public policy writing. Wesley, who receives a cash...

Sunday, 28 August 2011
The winners of the Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ) Book Design Awards were announced on 25 August. The winning titles are:Gerard Reid Award for Best Book sponsored by Nielsen Book...

Sunday, 28 August 2011
The Emerging Writers' Festival (EWF) may be coming to Brisbane. EWF director Lisa Dempster told the Weekly Book Newsletter that the festival hoped to run a mini-conference on 15 October...

Wednesday, 24 August 2011
In rights news this week:SalesChildren's/YA--Hardie Grant Egmont has sold UK, US, Canadian and German rights to Shift (Em Bailey); six further titles in the ‘Go Girl' series to Argentina; French-Canadian...

Tuesday, 23 August 2011
New name for Victorian Writers' CentreThe Victorian Writers' Centre has announced that the organisation will be renamed Writers Victoria. The announcement follows a recent survey in which members were asked...

Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Pan Macmillan Australia has announced the launch of its first digital-only imprint, Momentum. The imprint, which will operate separately to Pan Macmillan, will be run by Pan Macmillan director Tom...

Tuesday, 23 August 2011
The God Revolution by Keith Hill (Attar) has won the NZ$10,000 (A$7900) 2011 Ashton Wylie Charitable Trust Book Award, announced in Auckland on 19 August. Mary Ballard has won the 2011...

Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Paul Lockyer, veteran ABC journalist, has died aged 61 in a helicopter crash, along with camera operator John Bean and pilot Gary Ticehurst.Bridgitta Doyle, head of ABC Books (Harper Collins...