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NSW History Awards 2025 winners announced

NSW history award stack of books Monday, 8 September 2025
The winners of the 2025 NSW History Awards, worth a total of $85,000, were announced on 5 September 2025 at the State Library of NSW (SLNSW) as part of NSW...

Nakata Brophy Prize 2025 shortlist announced

The logo for Overland, with the word written in green font. Monday, 8 September 2025
Overland journal has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Nakata Brophy Prize for the best short story by a young Indigenous writer. The shortlisted writers, selected by judges Mykaela Saunders and...

PRH announces 2025 Personal Penguin 

Monday, 8 September 2025
Penguin Random House (PRH) Australia has announced the Personal Penguin figurine will return for this year’s Love Your Bookshop Day (LYBD), running on 11 October 2025. The collectable figurine aims...

Hachette announces 2025 Book Haul

Hachette Australia logo. Thursday, 4 September 2025
Hachette has announced Harry Hartog Carindale as the location for its 2025 Hachette Book Haul. This is the third iteration of the competition, which will take place on Love Your...

NYWF announces 2025 program

Thursday, 4 September 2025
The National Young Writers’ Festival (NYWF) has announced its 2025 program, running 2–5 October on the land of the Awabakal and Worimi peoples in Newcastle, NSW. To open the festival...

Canberra Writers Festival 2025 program announced

Thursday, 4 September 2025
The program for this year’s Canberra Writers Festival (CWF), running 22–26 October 2025, has been announced. International guests include Griffin Dunne, Eric Puchner, Cheng Lei, Sophie Gilbert and Omar El...

Roper on 2025 Cundill History Prize shortlist

Wednesday, 3 September 2025
Australian historian and author Lyndal Roper has been named on the 2025 Cundill History Prize shortlist. The prize, worth US$75,000 (A$115,137), aims to highlight ‘books that uncover neglected histories and...

ARA Historical Novel Prize 2025 longlists announced

HNSA 2025 adult longlist – a grouping of covers Wednesday, 3 September 2025
The Historical Novel Society Australasia (HNSA) has announced the longlists for the 2025 ARA Historical Novel Prize. Longlisted titles are: Adult category  All the Bees in the Hollows (Lauren Keegan,...

Rights round-up 

Boys Do Cry book cover Wednesday, 3 September 2025
Sales Children’s/YA Penguin Random House has sold traditional Chinese rights to Boys Do Cry (Gus Worland) to ACME Publishing in Taiwan. Scholastic has sold simplified Chinese rights to The Wonderful...

Time to Write announces Paragraph Fellowship shortlist

The logo for Time to Write Wednesday, 3 September 2025
Time to Write has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Paragraph Fellowship, worth $25,000. The six shortlisted writers and the working titles of their entries are: Alan Fyfe for ‘The...

Last One Out (Jane Harper, Macmillan) 

Tuesday, 2 September 2025
When 21-year-old Sam Crowley disappears in Carralon Ridge, his footprints are found scattered around three abandoned houses. Five years later, his mother, Ro, returns to town for the annual memorial...

Eggshell (Olivia De Zilva, Espresso) 

Tuesday, 2 September 2025
Tender yet unsparing, Olivia De Zilva’s debut young adult novella, Eggshell, is a piercing meditation on adolescence, grief and belonging. Set in Adelaide’s working-class suburbs, Eggshell centres Kira, a mixed-race...

Gravity Let Me Go (Trent Dalton, HarperCollins) 

Tuesday, 2 September 2025
Gravity Let Me Go is Trent Dalton’s fourth work of fiction, and it doesn’t disappoint, once again drawing readers deep into a raw and chaotic world that is both unsettling...

The Rot (Evelyn Araluen, UQP) 

Tuesday, 2 September 2025
In The Rot, Evelyn Araluen returns with a blistering follow-up to her Stella Prize–winning debut, Dropbear, proving once again her unmatched ability to splice lyrics, theory, memory and critique. This...

The Long Night (Christian White, Affirm) 

Tuesday, 2 September 2025
Christian White’s The Long Night is a tense psychological thriller driven by a chilling kidnapping premise. Nineteen-year-old Em is abducted in a moment of vulnerability following what should have been...

Neale wins 2025 Janet Frame Prize

Tuesday, 2 September 2025
Ōtepoti Dunedin novelist and poet Emma Neale has won the 2025 Janet Frame Prize, worth NZ$10,000. Neale is a freelance editor for publishers in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, as...

2025 Grieve Project longlist announced

Tuesday, 2 September 2025
The Hunter Writers’ Centre has announced the longlist for the 2025 Grieve Project, an annual competition for writing on grief and loss. Among longlisted entrants are: Poetry Anne Benjamin for...

Collicott wins 2025 Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize

A portrait of Emma Collicott Monday, 1 September 2025
Emma Collicott has been named the winner of the 2025 Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize, announced by the Margaret Mahy Estate, Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand and Little Moa. The judging panel...

A&U acquires Milligan’s second novel

Louise Milligan. Monday, 1 September 2025
Allen & Unwin (A&U) has acquired world rights to Shellybanks by Louise Milligan, via Jeanne Ryckmans at Key People Literary Management. Returning to the world of Milligan’s debut Pheasants Nest, Shellybanks centres...

Full program announced for Ubud 2025

Monday, 1 September 2025
Ubud Writers & Readers Festival (UWRF) has announced the full line-up for its 2025 festival program, themed ‘Aham Brahmasmi: I Am The Universe’, which will run 30 October to 2 November...

Readings 2025 Children’s Fiction Prize

Readings logo Monday, 1 September 2025
Readings has announced the shortlist for the 2025 Readings Children's Fiction Prize. The shortlisted titles are: Big Trouble with Angry Chairs (Lachlann Carter & Douglas Holgate, HGCP) Brightest Wild (Tania...