Cultural criticism needs to reflect Australia’s diversity
13 May 2020
'Before we can ever call ourselves a free and equal society for all, multicultural Australia must be reflected in all the conversations and critiques that shape our nation’s stories.'—Writer and...
New Zealand publishing is under threat
6 May 2020
‘This is the year to buy New Zealand books, if you want to be sure our books are still around in the future.’—Publishers Association of New Zealand president Julia Marshall...
Garner on being inducted into the ABIA Hall of Fame
29 April 2020
'When I was first starting out there were still people here who would think it was almost not worth publishing a book if it was not first published in London....
APA condemns unauthorised distribution of Turnbull memoir
22 April 2020
‘This disappointing, blatant and unforgiving act of piracy comes at a time when the Australian publishing industry—in fact the whole arts industry—is working tirelessly to support communities access content in...
Jess Hill on why we need to openly discuss domestic abuse
16 April 2020
'Part of the Australian story has been our struggle to face the difficult truths of our recent history. To me this is a book about what happens when there’s nothing...
Covid-19 reveals crisis in arts funding
8 April 2020
'Covid-19 is an opportunity to ask ourselves as a nation why we take our artists and cultural organisations for granted. Why, even in an emergency, can’t we find the money...
Pub dates: To move or not to move
1 April 2020
‘The great debate is over what to do with forthcoming books: Do you move them, like the new James Bond movie ... Or do you plow ahead, and hope the...
Covid-19 is already affecting writers’ incomes
25 March 2020
'As review space has shrunk over the years, live events have become even more crucial. Writers' festivals, launches and events promote our books, our passion, our intellectual capital. They give...
Support OzLit during the Covid-19 crisis
18 March 2020
‘There are things all Australians can do too—if you’re spending more time at home because you’re sick or self-isolating, please: stream Australian music; watch Australian movies and TV shows; read...
Australia’s literary readership is shrinking
12 March 2020
‘I think we are in a period of stagnation. New titles continue to be published into the established categories, and readers are even more prone than before to act like...
Despite disruptions, book fairs ‘have never felt more vital’
4 March 2020
‘While some complain about the expense of such events and inevitably their carbon footprint, the bigger trade fairs ... have never felt more vital. You only need to glance at...
Ivor Indyk on literary writing and publishing
26 February 2020
‘A prize as supposedly prestigious as the Prime Minister’s Award has only a modest impact on sales, and in the case of poetry, none at all. Speaking generally, we have...
The specialist nature of bookselling is not recognised in current pay structures
19 February 2020
‘Overtime is an overlooked aspect of bookshop work: to be the expert bookseller that employers and customers expect takes a lot of private reading ... Yes, it is a pleasure...
On writing in a climate emergency
12 February 2020
'Writing probably doesn’t feel like the most crucial response here, and maybe it’s not. There is lots of other work to be done. But writing can help us see connections,...
Grappling with diversity and working conditions in the book industry
5 February 2020
‘A discussion that meaningfully grapples with diversity within the industry itself would have to involve an honest reckoning with the conditions that most of us have accepted for so long,...
We need Torres Strait Islander voices in YA
30 January 2020
'Why can’t I find any Torres Strait Islander young adult literature? Is there some unconscious bias that has been turning these stories away? Is nobody looking for this diverse experience...
UK book trade predicts the coming trends in 2020
22 January 2020
‘The climate crisis will continue to dominate headlines [in 2020], but it will affect us more on a practical, day-to-day level, including how we operate our businesses and how we...
The decline in new-title publishing
15 January 2020
'New-title publishing has become much riskier and more expensive for all publishers. They naturally react to that by publishing fewer new titles, and that describes the tactics of just about...
Title omission reveals government’s attitude to the arts
11 December 2019
‘Words matter and while the loss of the word “arts” from the title of a department has been described as a technicality by the Minister in response to the outcry,...
Marketing for small publishers
4 December 2019
‘We have to create demand for our books precisely because they are not stacked up at the front of the shop—on ‘the dick table’ as Clare Wright so memorably called...
The gift of being underrated
27 November 2019
‘This is what fuels a fiction writer: the ongoing life of the ideas we love. The saddest thing about a book failing to reach an audience is not the wound...
High school English curriculums ignore diverse, Australian literature
20 November 2019
'The demographic of Australian classrooms has changed significantly in the past 50 years. But the texts studied in English have remained remarkably stable ... this situation requires serious attention.'—Academic Larissa...
Open access a ‘laughable’ model for UWA Publishing
13 November 2019
'Open access has an important role to play in academic publishing, but it is laughable to claim UWA Publishing’s cultural impact can simply be replaced through open access.'—academic Emmett Stinson...
The decline of the midlist author
7 November 2019
‘You want to be debut, literary, or bestselling; you don’t want to be midlist. The midlist is like the middle class; it’s the group that gets squeezed. They don’t get...
Melissa Lucashenko argues for tax-free literary prizes
30 October 2019
'It's a bit of a kick in the guts to win a major prize only to learn you're going to lose a third of it or maybe more for the...
Galley Beggar publisher questions Booker Prize judging process
23 October 2019
‘It’s one thing to feel bad about losing. It’s another to feel you were never in the game ... Toxic thoughts and questions flood your mind when you can’t trust...
Publishing in a time of political instability
16 October 2019
'As publishers we should be publishing political books from the left, from the right, from the centre. It's important we’re not retreating back to publishing the sort of liberal books...
Book fairs still key for selling Australian rights, data suggests
9 October 2019
‘There is no getting around it: for Australians, attending an international book fair always means a long-haul flight ... It’s also expensive. Yet the evidence is overwhelming, from lists of...
Reduced arts funding is taking its toll on Australian culture
2 October 2019
'Without independent artists, our larger companies have no talent pool, no new ideas and no future ... And this is the sector that now sees itself as a burning dumpster.'...
Shifting the gender balance of Australian literary journalism
25 September 2019
‘Historically, feminist counts have come and gone: they have jolted some recognition, made some small gains, but then have been largely forgotten. The task for us now is to ensure...
