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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...

Killernova (Omar Musa, Penguin)

Wednesday, 29 September 2021
The latest collection from slam poet champion Omar Musa is a raw and muscular combination of poetry and woodcut art that uses the visual and literary capacities of each form...

Wiradjuri Country (Larry Brandy, NLA Publishing)

Wednesday, 29 September 2021
In Wiradjuri Country, Wiradjuri author Larry Brandy (along with several Indigenous artists, and with many photographs), offers a wealth of detailed information about flora, fauna, habitat, history, culture and storytelling in the...

Doing Politics: Writing on public life (Judith Brett, Text)

Wednesday, 29 September 2021
The state of the humanities in Australia today fills Judith Brett with despair. If she had a child considering a liberal arts degree now, and she had the money, she...

Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief (Katrina Nannestad, ABC Books)

Tuesday, 28 September 2021
Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief is a historical novel for middle-grade readers set during WWII. Young Sasha lies in a hospital in Berlin, recovering after the end of the war. His...

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...

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...

Read the latest Publishers Weekly

Monday, 27 September 2021
Books+Publishing is partnering with US trade news magazine Publishers Weekly to provide our subscribers with exclusive access to the weekly digital edition of PW magazine. View the edition here.

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...

Rights round-up

Wednesday, 22 September 2021
Sales Fiction Transit Lounge has sold German rights to The Stoning (Peter Papathanasiou) to Polar Verlag, via Martin Shaw at Shaw Literary. Children’s/YA Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing has sold French...

$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,...

Love Your Bookshop Day, Varuna Residential Fellowships

Wednesday, 22 September 2021
The Australian Booksellers Association has announced details about this year’s Love Your Bookshop Day celebrations on 9 October, which will take place online ‘so that everyone can engage from wherever...

PRH acquires Weldon debut novel ‘Sixty-Seven Days’

Wednesday, 22 September 2021
Penguin Random House Australia (PRH) has acquired world rights to Sixty-Seven Days by Yvonne Weldon, in a deal brokered by Selwa Anthony of Selwa Anthony Author Management Agency. According to...

Caught in the Act (Shane Jenek aka Courtney Act, Pantera Press)

Wednesday, 22 September 2021
Shane Jenek’s drag queen alter ego Courtney Act has been in the public eye for almost 20 years, beginning with her groundbreaking appearance on the first series of Australian Idol. As...

HGCP acquires ‘UnMonumental’ picture book

Wednesday, 22 September 2021
Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing (HGCP) has acquired world rights to UnMonumental, a hardback picture book by artists James Tylor and Matt Chun based on their Instagram project of the same...

Freya Blackwood on ‘The Boy and the Elephant’

Tuesday, 21 September 2021
Freya Blackwood is a Greenaway Medallist and seven-time CBCA winner whose picture books are beloved for her warm and perceptive drawings. Her latest book, The Boy and the Elephant (HarperCollins, November) is a tender, wordless picture book...