Danger Awards 2025 shortlists announced
Wednesday, 27 August 2025
The BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival has announced the shortlists for the 2025 Danger Awards. Shortlisted titles in each category are: Debut crime fiction What I Would Do to You...
Readings 2025 New Australian Fiction Prize shortlist announced
Wednesday, 27 August 2025
Readings has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Readings New Australian Fiction Prize. This year’s six shortlisted books are: The Confidence Woman (Sophie Quick, A&U) Edenhope (Louise Le Nay, Text)...
Read the latest Publishers Weekly
Wednesday, 27 August 2025
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.
Between (Anna Walker, Scribble)
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
Between by Anna Walker, CBCA Award–winning creator of Lottie and Walter and Florette, is a beautiful and meditative picture book that invites readers to pause, observe and imagine. Told with...
A Smart Girl’s Guide to Second Chances (Steph Vizard, HarperCollins)
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
Steph Vizard’s A Smart Girl’s Guide to Second Chances is a fun, perfectly executed romcom that plays cleverly with the idea of missed connections and what-ifs. When Rebecca is offered...
Silence Is My Habitat: Ecobiographical Essays (Jessica White, Upswell)
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
Silence Is My Habitat by Jessica White (A Curious Intimacy) is a collection of ecobiographical essays – stories that trace a life not through chronology alone, but also through a...
The Lucky Sisters (Rachael Johns, Penguin)
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
Rachael Johns (The Patterson Girls, The Greatest Gift) delivers one of her most heartfelt and emotionally layered novels yet in The Lucky Sisters, a story marking a confident shift beyond...
Here Come the Cousins (Maggie Hutchings, illus Sarah Zweck, T&H)
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
In Here Come the Cousins, a young child eagerly awaits the arrival of their seven cousins at Pop’s seaside home. After hellos and measuring who has grown the most over...
Last Chance Joey (Meredith Resce, Rhiza Edge)
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
In Meredith Resce’s debut YA novel, Last Chance Joey, 17-year-old Joey Walton – who is struggling with dyslexia, toxic social circles and a troubled home life – is sent to live in the...
A&U acquires New Blue Ribbon Cookbook
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
Allen & Unwin (A&U) has acquired world English rights to The New Blue Ribbon Cookbook by Liz Harfull, in a deal brokered by Fiona Inglis at Curtis Brown. ‘Every year thousands...
Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival announces 2025 program
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
The full program for the 2025 Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival, which runs 31 October–2 November, has been announced. With the theme 'a path to wonder', the 2025 program includes more...
Australian World Heritage Residency Program supports ‘Wet Tropics of Queensland’ project
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
Amanda Niehaus (on behalf of Science Write Now) has been announced as one of three recipients of the inaugural Australian World Heritage Residency Program for the project ‘Wet Tropics of...
UWAP acquires ‘Mother Salad’ by Pantsis
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
UWA Publishing (UWAP) has acquired world rights to Mother Salad, a collection of short stories by Helena Pantsis. ‘Mother Salad is a series of small fictions that explore the plights...
WestWords announces new CYA manuscript prize
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
WestWords has announced the Libby Gleeson Prize for Children’s Literature, a new biennial prize for an unpublished manuscript for children or young adults. The winning manuscript is set to be...
Copyright Agency relaunches industry grants
Monday, 25 August 2025
The Copyright Agency has announced the launch of the Publishing Fellowships – an updated extension of its previous Publishing Industry Career Development grants (PICD), which were paused during the pandemic....
Sanders wins the 2025 NZSA Shaw Writer’s Award
Monday, 25 August 2025
The New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi O Aotearoa (NZSA) has announced Cristina Sanders as the winner of the 2025 NZSA Shaw Writer’s Award, worth NZ$5000. Sanders is...
Atlantic Books acquires Grey’s next novel
Monday, 25 August 2025
Atlantic Books Australia, a division of Allen & Unwin, has acquired UK/ANZ rights to Start at the End by Emma Grey, in a two-book deal brokered by Anjanette Fennell at Key...
RWA announces Ruby Award 2025 winners
Monday, 25 August 2025
Romance Writers of Australia (RWA) has announced the winners of the 2025 Romantic Book of the Year Awards, known as the Ruby Awards. Chosen from shortlists announced in June, the...
World Kid Lit Reading Challenge Award
Thursday, 21 August 2025
WorldKidLit has announced a new award for schools ‘to promote international and inclusive reading’, said organisers. Running through September and open internationally, the award aims to encourage reading, connect young...
Two Australian libraries named among world’s most beautiful
Thursday, 21 August 2025
Two Australian libraries have been named in the ten most beautiful libraries in the world for 2025, as announced by 1000 Libraries magazine. In second place, the State Library of...
ILF Day theme announced
Thursday, 21 August 2025
The Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) has announced ‘Strength In Our Stories: For Now & Future Generations’ as the 2025 Indigenous Literacy Day (ILD) theme and Grinj det K’Taun Krok! (Grinch...
Bendigo Writers Festival updates; NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults; festival programs launched
Thursday, 21 August 2025
Industry news this week featured heavily on the Bendigo Writers Festival, which ran a truncated program 15–18 August 2025 after 50 authors and the festival bookshop withdrew in protest of...
Rights round-up
Wednesday, 20 August 2025
Sales Fiction Arndell has sold Dutch rights to four titles by TL Swan (The Stopover, The Takeover, The Casanova and The Do-Over) to SVM Publishing. Penguin Random House has sold...
Papercuts Comics Festival announces program
Wednesday, 20 August 2025
Papercuts Comics Festival has announced its 2025 program, running 12–14 September in Adelaide. Artists appearing include Alice Lam, Chad Molyneux, Evie ‘YEEVZ’ Hilliar, Molly Hunt, Nicola Scott and Robin Tatlow-Lord....
S&S acquires Kitching’s next thriller
Wednesday, 20 August 2025
Simon & Schuster Australia (S&S) has acquired world rights to thriller novel The Secrets of Strangers by Jess Kitching, in a deal brokered by Daniel Pilkington at the Pilkington Agency....
Keeperton acquires Belan’s debut
Wednesday, 20 August 2025
Keeperton has acquired world rights to debut novel The Line by Jeremy Belan, in a two-book deal. The Line is a coming-of-age story following Eddie, who is caught between two...
Australian Political Book of the Year 2025 longlist announced
Wednesday, 20 August 2025
The 2025 longlist for the Australian Political Book of the Year has been announced. Longlisted titles are: The Assassination of Neville Wran (Milton Cockburn, Connor Court) Broken Heart: A True...
Read the latest Publishers Weekly
Wednesday, 20 August 2025
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.
Mad Mabel (Sally Hepworth, Macmillan)
Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Few people suspect an elderly woman or a little girl of murder, which is what makes Mad Mabel such a deliciously enjoyable read. Sally Hepworth’s latest novel begins with a...
For No Mortal Creature (Keshe Chow, Penguin)
Tuesday, 19 August 2025
For No Mortal Creature by Keshe Chow (The Girl with No Reflection) is a romantic fantasy inspired by Inception and Wuthering Heights, but the story it tells is unique and...
