Tuesday, 22 August 2006
As reported in a WBN special bulletin last Friday, the winners and honour books in this year's Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Awards were announced...

Tuesday, 22 August 2006
Imagine how useful it would be if the whole book trade had access to the same calendar. Now it does!Our new online events calendar provides the whole industry with a way of...

Tuesday, 22 August 2006
Pan Macmillan has announced a new trade publishing division, Picador Asia. The imprint will aim to secure world rights to Asian titles to publish simultaneously in Asia, the UK, Australia and...

Tuesday, 22 August 2006
Rockpool Publishing, a new Australian publishing house owned by former Random House production manager Lisa Hanrahan and Gary Allen of book distributor Gary Allen Pty Ltd, will launch its list...

Tuesday, 22 August 2006
The Prime Minister, John Howard, has announced the creation of a new annual prize for Australian history. The prize, which the Prime Minister said could go to a substantial written...

Tuesday, 22 August 2006
The deadline for applications for grants from the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) Professional Development Fund is this Friday, 25 August. In 2005-06 $150,000 was allocated to the fund, which allocates...

Tuesday, 22 August 2006
It looks like Australian readers like a little murder and mystery in their reading diet at the moment. The Husband, Dean Koontz's nail-biter about a landscape gardener whose wife is...

Tuesday, 22 August 2006
Jim Hall, former editor and literary editor of the Australian newspaper and editor of the Bulletin magazine, died last week, aged 71. Although he spent most of his career working...

Tuesday, 22 August 2006
Popular and prolific Australian playwright and author Alex Buzo has died at the age of 62, after a long battle with cancer. Buzo was best known for his 1968 play...

Tuesday, 22 August 2006
The importance of Australia as a rights market will be discussed at the 20th International Rights Directors Meeting, to be held the day before this year's Frankfurt Book Fair.The topic of this...

Tuesday, 15 August 2006
Michael Sellers, the son of comedian Peter Sellers, has died.Sellers wrote two memoirs about the difficult relationship he had with his father: PS I Love You (Sutton Publishing) and Sellers...

Tuesday, 15 August 2006
American author, environmentalist and anarchist Murray Bookchin has died, aged 85.Bookchin was the author of over 20 books on environmental and political topics, and his writings in the 1960s anticipated...

Tuesday, 15 August 2006
Australian theologian and biblical scholar Leon Morris has died, aged 92.Morris wrote more than 50 books that have sold nearly two million copies worldwide and have been translated into many...

Tuesday, 15 August 2006
Nobel Prize-winning German author Günter Grass is weathering a storm of controversy over revelations that he served in the infamous Nazi SS during WWII.Grass, who became famous for novels examining...

Tuesday, 15 August 2006
The NSW Council of Civil Liberties has launched a legal challenge to the recent banning of two books by the Classification Review Board.The Council will shortly begin proceedings in the Federal...

Tuesday, 15 August 2006
The Overstocks and Remainders Fair (OARF) has announced the dates and venue for its 2007 event.OARF will be held at Melbourne's Rydges Carlton Hotel on 11 and 12 February 2007.For...

Tuesday, 15 August 2006
HarperCollins has again reported a record annual result, its ninth consecutive year of growth, with worldwide sales of US$1.3 billion (A$1.65 billion) for 2005-06 and operating profit rising to US$167...

Tuesday, 15 August 2006
The Brisbane Writers' Festival (BWF) has released the full program and guest-list for this year's Festival, to be held from 13-17 September.With more than 20 international and 200 local guests,...

Tuesday, 15 August 2006
Sisters in Crime has announced the shortlist for this year's Davitt Awards for the best crime books by Australian women published during 2005.Sisters in Crime members will now vote on...

Tuesday, 15 August 2006
The shortlists for the NSW Kids Own Literature Awards (the KOALA awards) and Queensland's Books I Love Best Yearly (BILBY awards) have been announced.The BILBYs and KOALAs are children's choice...

Tuesday, 15 August 2006
The shortlist for this year's Victorian Premier's Literary Awards was announced at the state Library of Victoria last week by Victorian Minister of Arts Mary Delahunty.There are 41 books in...

Tuesday, 15 August 2006
Three of the nineteen novels on the longlist for this year's Man Booker Prize are by Australian authors.Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey (Knopf), The Secret River by Kate...

Tuesday, 15 August 2006
In news from our ‘Around the World' blog this week, one of the world's largest libraries--the library of the University of California--joins Google's library project, London's Evening Standard speculates that...

Tuesday, 15 August 2006
The first Tasmanian Book Fair was held in Hobart on Sunday, as part of Tasmanian Living Writers' Week. The fair, which included a meet-an-author program, readings, launches, giveaways and music...

Tuesday, 15 August 2006
The winners of this year's Romance Writers of Australia Romantic Book of the Year awards have been announced. The winner of the long romance section was Pride of Lancashire (Anna...

Monday, 14 August 2006
A letter to WBN subscribers The new online WBN service has now been in operation for about two months and we would like to share with the trade some of things...