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Readings announces 2019 New Australian Fiction Prize shortlist

Tuesday, 20 August 2019
Readings has announced the shortlist for its 2019 New Australian Fiction Prize. The shortlisted titles are: A Constant Hum (Alice Bishop, Text) Inappropriation (Lexi Freiman, A&U) The Flight of Birds...

Black Inc. sells ‘See What You Made Me Do’ to US in auction

Tuesday, 20 August 2019
Black Inc. has sold North American rights to Jess Hill’s nonfiction book See What You Made Me Do to Sourcebooks in a two-house auction. Released in Australia last month, See...

Ned Kelly Awards 2019 shortlists announced

Monday, 19 August 2019
The Australian Crime Writers Association (ACWA) has announced the shortlists for this year’s Ned Kelly Awards for Australian crime writing. The shortlisted works in each category are: Best crime fiction...

Publishers Weekly

Monday, 19 August 2019
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 for a limited time. This...

Local writer, artist among Hugo Awards winners

Monday, 19 August 2019
The winners of this year’s Hugo Awards, presented annually by the World Science Fiction Convention, have been announced. Australian Foz Meadows won in the Best Fan Writer category and Australia-based...

Twelfth Planet Press launches ‘inclusive’ new imprint for pre-teens

Monday, 19 August 2019
Independent genre publisher Twelfth Planet Press has launched a new imprint for pre-teen readers. The Titania imprint will specialise in ‘diverse stories for children in the 3–13 age range, with...

Charts this week

Monday, 19 August 2019
Top 10 Bestsellers Index Title Author Imprint 1 The 117-Storey Treehouse Andy Griffiths Pan 2 Dare to Lead Brene Brown Vermilion 3 Boy Swallows Universe Trent Dalton HarperCollins 4 The...

Moloney wins 2019 CBCA Nan Chauncy Award

Friday, 16 August 2019
The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) has presented James Moloney with the 2019 CBCA Nan Chauncy Award for his contribution to Australian children’s literature. Moloney is the author of...

CBCA Awards 2019 winners announced

Friday, 16 August 2019
The winners of this year’s Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Awards have been announced. The winning titles in each of the categories are: Older readers...

Storylines launches te reo Māori manuscript award

Friday, 16 August 2019
Storylines Children’s Literature Charitable Trust has announced a new award for an unpublished manuscript written in te reo Māori, reports Booksellers NZ. The new award is named in honour of...

Macfarlane wins nature writing prize for ‘Underland’

Friday, 16 August 2019
In the UK, Robert Macfarlane has been awarded the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize for his eighth book Underland (Hamish Hamilton). Judges called Underland ‘a passionate book which celebrates the...

Apolonio wins Liminal Fiction Prize

Friday, 16 August 2019
Bryant Apolonio has won the inaugural Liminal Fiction Prize for his story ‘Bad Weather’. Apolonio’s story is described as ‘a split narrative between two generations, two worlds and two cultures’....

‘The Fountain of Public Prosperity’ wins 2019 Australian Christian Book of the Year

Friday, 16 August 2019
The Fountain of Public Prosperity: Evangelical Christians in Australian History 1740–1914 by academics Stuart Piggin and Robert Linder (Monash University Publishing) has been named 2019 Australian Christian Book of the...

Full program announced for Ubud 2019

Thursday, 15 August 2019
The full program has been announced for the 2019 Ubud Writers & Readers Festival (UWRF), which runs from 23–27 October in Ubud, Indonesia. Joining a total of 180 speakers from...

Affirm appoints Bell kids commissioning editor, Whelan editor

Thursday, 15 August 2019
Affirm Press has appointed senior editor Davina Bell as the new commissioning editor for its kids list. Assistant editor Meg Whelan has also been promoted to editor of the kids...

Text acquires ANZ rights to Booker-longlisted ‘Ducks, Newburyport’

Thursday, 15 August 2019
Text Publishing has acquired ANZ rights to Lucy Ellmann’s Booker-longlisted novel Ducks, Newburyport, published in the UK by Galley Beggar Press. The novel, comprised of only eight sentences, follows an...

Diversity lacking in the Australian arts sector

Wednesday, 14 August 2019
‘The data is unequivocal: Australia’s cultural leaders are simply not representative of our richly diverse Australian community. The question now is, what are we going to do about it?’—Jackie Bailey,...

Publicity round-up

Wednesday, 14 August 2019
Books+Publishing’s weekly publicity round-up covers forthcoming publicity for Australian and internationally authored books due to appear in Australian media over the coming weeks. Nonfiction Memoir & biography Rob Morrison (Curious...

Baker & Taylor’s retail exit

Wednesday, 14 August 2019
In early May, Baker & Taylor (B&T) announced it was closing its retail wholesale business—choosing instead to focus on the library market. Brad Jefferies asked local booksellers what this means...

Angie Martin wins inaugural First Nations Fellowship for commercial writing

Wednesday, 14 August 2019
Harlequin has announced Angie Martin as the winner of the inaugural Commercial Fiction Fellowship for First Nation Writers, for her manuscript ‘Melaleuca’. Martin’s manuscript was chosen from a shortlist of...

Rights round-up

Wednesday, 14 August 2019
Sales Fiction Simone Camilleri of Green Ink Agency has sold film rights to The Girl on the Page (John Purcell, HarperCollins) to Causeway Films (see news). Nonfiction Spinifex Press has...

Homecooked Comics Festival to run 17–18 August in Melbourne

Wednesday, 14 August 2019
Homecooked Comics Festival is a two-day indie comic book festival, featuring book launches, children's activities, workshops and a free market day, where comics creators will sell their work, alongside representatives...

Highest ever box office sales at 2019 Byron Writers Festival; Indigenous authors dominate bestsellers

Wednesday, 14 August 2019
This year’s Byron Writers Festival attracted the highest box office sales in its 23-year history, according to event organisers. The festival, which ran from 2–4 August in Byron Bay, attracted...

Rosenbloom selected for Shanghai Visiting International Publishers program

Wednesday, 14 August 2019
Scribble publisher Miriam Rosenbloom has been awarded a Shanghai Visiting International Publishers fellowship to attend a specialist program alongside the Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair in November this year. The...