‘The White Girl’ optioned for film
22 September 2020
Tony Birch’s novel The White Girl (UQP) has been optioned for feature film by Typecast Entertainment. Birch's Miles Franklin-shortlisted novel follows Odette Brown, who is raising her granddaughter on her own and...
Exploring Eden Media acquires ‘Fire to Fork’ cookbook
21 September 2020
Exploring Eden Media has acquired world rights Fire to Fork, a camping cookbook by Harry Fisher. Fisher, who has developed a strong following on Instagram and via his YouTube series...
Hardie Grant acquires Alberici memoir
17 September 2020
Hardie Grant Books has acquired world rights to journalist Emma Alberici’s memoir Rewrite the Story. Interweaving her life as a first generation Australian and her career in journalism with an...
Molloy memoir ‘Fourteen’ to be adapted for screen
17 September 2020
Screen rights to journalist Shannon Molloy’s memoir Fourteen (S&S) have been acquired by Orange Entertainment Co. Fourteen is Molloy's account of the homophobic bullying and violence he experienced during high...
PRH acquires Madden’s ‘Anything But Fine’
16 September 2020
Penguin Random House Australia (PRH) has acquired ANZ rights to YA novel Anything But Fine by Tobias Madden. The novel’s teenage protagonist Luca Mason has been preparing to audition for...
S&S acquires biography ‘The Nazis Knew My Name’
15 September 2020
Simon & Schuster Australia (S&S) has acquired world rights to The Nazis Knew My Name, Maya Lee's biography of her mother, Australian–Slovakian Auschwitz survivor Magda Hellinger. Lee's book is based on...
A&U acquires 2020 Calibre Prize winner Rees’ memoir
15 September 2020
Allen & Unwin (A&U) has acquired ANZ rights to 2020 Calibre Prize winner Yves Rees’ memoir via Jacinta di Mase, following a five-way auction. All About Yves: Notes from a...
Affirm acquires picture book based on viral TikTok poem
11 September 2020
Affirm Press has acquired world rights to picture book Our Family Pledge, based on a poem by Emmaline Carroll Southwell that has accumulated millions of views on video sharing platform...
Rights round-up
9 September 2020
Sales Fiction Left Bank Literary has sold French translation rights to The Octopus and I (Erin Hortle, A&U) to Les éditions Dalva (Bourgois Publishing Group). Nonfiction Black Inc. has sold...
Affirm acquires Hoffman memoir ‘Full Credit to the Boys’
8 September 2020
Affirm Press has acquired ANZ rights to Mel Hoffman’s memoir Full Credit to the Boys. Described by the publisher as 'a critical and often hilarious examination of gender in professional...
PRH acquires Next Chapter fellow Cehic’s short story collection
8 September 2020
Penguin Random House Australia (PRH) has acquired world rights to Sadvertising, the debut short story collection by Next Chapter fellow Ennis Cehic. According to the author, the satirical stories in...
Australian Geographic acquires ‘Deadly Science’ series
4 September 2020
Australian Geographic has acquired world rights to an eight-book 'Deadly Science' nonfiction series aimed at primary school readers. Developed in conjunction with Deadly Science founder Corey Tutt, who will edit...
UQP acquires McQuire’s ‘Black Witness: The power of Indigenous media’
3 September 2020
UQP has acquired world rights to Black Witness: The power of Indigenous media, an updated collection of Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist Amy McQuire's work. McQuire has been reporting...
YA trilogy ‘Valentine’ optioned for screen
3 September 2020
Jodi McAlister's supernatural YA trilogy 'Valentine' (Penguin) has been optioned for screen by Like A Photon Creative via Alex Adsett of Alex Adsett Publishing Services. McAlister's trilogy features a team...
HarperCollins acquires four Hawkins novels
2 September 2020
HarperCollins Australia has acquired ANZ rights to two adult novels and world rights to two children’s novels by Kelli Hawkins via Melanie Ostell at Melanie Ostell Literary. Hawkins' debut Other...
Scribner acquires new Falconer nonfiction work
2 September 2020
Scribner Australia has acquired ANZ rights to Delia Falconer’s new nonfiction work Signs and Wonders from Jane Novak at the Jane Novak Literary Agency. Building on Falconer’s essays ‘Signs and Wonders’...
Affirm acquires Layton memoir ‘No Apologies’
1 September 2020
Affirm Press has acquired ANZ rights No Apologies, a memoir by former elite netballer and current All-Australian AFLW player Sharni Layton. In 2016 Layton was named International Netball Player of...
UQP acquires second novel for children by Carnavas
28 August 2020
UQP has acquired My Brother Ben, the second novel for children by Peter Carnavas. ‘Offering a rich narrative that centres on sibling relationships, the story follows brothers Luke and Ben...
Affirm acquires Williams’ ‘The Bookbinder of Jericho’
25 August 2020
Affirm Press has acquired Pip Williams' second novel The Bookbinder of Jericho, set in the same world as her bestselling debut The Dictionary of Lost Words. The Bookbinder of Jericho...
Epstein’s ‘Small Spaces’ optioned for film
24 August 2020
Small Spaces (Sarah Epstein, Walker Books) has been optioned for film by Triptych Pictures and US producer Rebecca Green via Alex Adsett. Triptych produced feature film The Babadook and TV...
Synchronicity Australia options FitzGerald’s ‘Ash Mountain’ for screen
19 August 2020
Synchronicity Australia, the new Melbourne-based arm of Glasgow production company Synchronicity Films, has acquired screen rights to Helen FitzGerald's forthcoming novel Ash Mountain (Affirm, March 2021). Affirm Press described Ash Mountain...
Transit Lounge acquires Papathanasiou’s ‘The Stoning’
19 August 2020
Transit Lounge has acquired world English rights to debut crime fiction novel The Stoning by Peter Papathanasiou, via Martin Shaw from Shaw Literary. Canberra-based Papathanasiou, who published his memoir Little...
‘Invisible Boys’ optioned for film and TV
18 August 2020
Director Nicholas Verso and producer Tania Chambers have optioned the film and television rights to Invisible Boys (Holden Sheppard, Fremantle Press), via Haylee Nash of the Nash Agency. The YA...
Hardie Grant acquires Ellis’ ‘Sex, Lies and Question Time’
10 August 2020
Hardie Grant Books has acquired Sex, Lies and Question Time: The successes and struggles of women in Australia’s parliament by former Australian politician Kate Ellis. The publisher said Ellis’ book...
Magabala acquires Reid’s ‘Our Matriarchs Matter’
10 August 2020
Magabala Books has acquired Our Matriarchs Matter by Wiradjuri and Wailwan activist, lawyer and co-founder of Instagram account Blackfulla Bookclub, Teela May Reid. The publisher acquired the work of junior...
UQP acquires Walker’s ‘The First Time I Thought I was Dying’
7 August 2020
UQP has acquired world rights to The First Time I Thought I was Dying, a collection of personal essays and cultural criticism on ‘the unruly body in late capitalism’ from...
S&S acquires Rogers autobiography
7 August 2020
Simon & Schuster Australia (S&S) has acquired the autobiography of rugby player Mat Rogers. The book, scheduled for Christmas 2021, is the first major acquisition by new S&S nonfiction publisher...
HarperCollins acquires Mattinson’s ‘We Were Not Men’
5 August 2020
HarperCollins has acquired ANZ rights to Campbell Mattinson's debut novel We Were Not Men, from Tara Wynne at Curtis Brown. ‘It only took the first 22 pages of this novel—which...
Wakefield acquires Parker’s ‘Endo Days’
5 August 2020
Wakefield Press has acquired world rights to journalist Libby Trainor Parker’s debut nonfiction book, which has the working title Endo Days: Life, love and laughs with endometriosis. Endo Days is...
Black Inc. acquires ‘We’ve Got This’ anthology
4 August 2020
Black Inc. has acquired world rights to We've Got This: Parenting with a disability, an anthology to be edited by journalist and disability advocate Eliza Hull, creator of the ABC...
