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London calling

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Stories to tell: Australian fiction on offer at LBF

Following on from recent deals for her work in the UK and US, multi-award-winning writer Alexis Wright is the ‘top author’ for publisher Giramondo at this year’s London Book Fair. ‘We’ll be focusing on her entire catalogue: Praiseworthy, Tracker, The Swan Book and Carpentaria,’ says Nick Tapper from Giramondo.

From Fremantle Press, look out for the several crime titles: Summer of Blood, from multi-award-winning author, musician and screenwriter Dave Warner, in which two police officers travel to San Francisco and Los Angeles in the summer of 1967—the Summer of Love—in search of a missing young man; Vertigo from Karen Herbert (whose book The River Mouth is currently in film development), featuring Frances, a mid-level bureaucrat who uncovers a trail of corruption that leads to the highest levels of government; and David Whish-Wilson’s newest crime read, I Am Already Dead, the sequel to True West.

Also from Fremantle comes contemporary fiction title The Disorganisation of Celia Stone, author Emma Young’s answer to Bridget Jones, but featuring a hyper-organised millennial who moves smoothly from one appointment to another with everything completely under control until her husband throws a spanner in the works, making her question what it is she really wants. Young is a writer, journalist and former bookseller, and the author of The Last Bookshop, which was shortlisted for the inaugural Fogarty Literary Award for Young Writers. A previous winner of that award, Brooke Dunnell, also has a new title on offer: The Last Best Chance is the follow up to The Glass House. According to the publisher, with ‘relatable themes, plot-driven tension and a life-affirming conclusion, this is satisfying reading for fans of contemporary women’s fiction’.

Text Publishing has several titles on offer this fair, including Tara Calaby’s debut novel House of Longing, an ‘irresistible sapphic historical romance from a dazzling new Australian talent’. Other debut books from Text include Eleanor Elliott Thomas’s ‘wickedly sharp and absurdly funny’ The Opposite of Success, which introduces ‘a sensational new voice who reminds us that failure is always an option’; and Emma Sidnam’s Backwaters. The winner of the 2022 Michael Gifkins Prize, Backwaters is a ‘tender and exquisitely written debut novel’ examining racism, identity and complex family history.

Also on offer from Text are Out of the Blue (Anne Buist and Graeme Simsion), a ‘realistic and nuanced novel that takes us behind the locked doors of a psychiatric unit’ that draws from Buist’s decades of work in psychiatric care, and Emily Spurr’s Beatrix and Fred, a ‘bizarre and beautiful tale of an unlikely friendship’ pitched for fans of Ruth Ozeki, Scarlett Thomas, Louise Erdrich and Gail Honeyman.

Samantha Tidy’s The Happiness Jar (Storytorch) is ‘an Australian story with quintessential characters’, which plays out against the ‘colourful and pressing heat of the remote Kimberley’ and ‘the smoky heat and hum of a busy thriving city in India’. ‘The Happiness Jar is at its heart, a story of faith in oneself, in each other and of redemption,’ the publisher says. ‘It is the story of three journeys, intertwined and interdependent, in the wake of a loved one’s death, reminding us as it always does, of the shortness of our own lives.’

Scribe is publishing a new collection of short fiction from Laura Jean McKay, the Arthur C Clarke Award-winning author of The Animals in that Country. In Gunflower, McKay offers ‘hallucinogenic glimpses of places where dreams subsume reality, where childhood restarts, where humans behave like animals and animals talk like humans’. ‘These stories explode and bloom in mesmerising ways, showing the world both as it is and as it could be,’ says the publisher.

Also from Scribe, critically acclaimed author Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s fourth book, West Girls, is a ‘bold and ambitious collection of interlinked stories, in the vein of Bernardine Evaristo and Jennifer Egan’. Set in the state of Western Australia, West Girls stars a cast of ‘glamour-hungry schoolgirls, WAGs, mining heiresses, backpacker-barmaids, and cosmetic nurses’ and examines ‘beauty, race, class divisions and social mobility’.

Get your facts here: Australian nonfiction on offer at LBF

Forensic psychologist Ahona Guha’s groundbreaking book Reclaim: Understanding complex trauma and those who abuse (Scribe) will ‘broaden and expand your thinking, whether you are a trauma survivor, someone who loves a survivor, or someone seeking to understand abuse’. In Reclaim, Guha shines light on the ‘”difficult” trauma victims that society often ignores, and calls for compassion and understanding in order to reclaim a safer, healthier society for everyone’.

Also from Scribe is Walter Marsh’s forthcoming book Young Rupert: The making of the Murdoch Empire (August), which draws on unpublished archive material and new reportage, pieces together a paper trail of ‘succession, sedition, and power’.

From NewSouth comes Dark Winter: An insider’s guide to pandemics and biosecurity by epidemiologist and biosecurity expert Raina MacIntyre, which ‘provides insights into historical biological attacks, lab accidents and epidemics, and the Covid-19 pandemic’ and a glimpse into new frontiers of biosecurity. Personal essay collection Peripathetic: Notes on (un)belonging by Cher Tan (May 2024) is an exploration of identity across global and digital territories, that bends and breaks boundaries to resist easy categorisation, traversing subjects from technology to late capitalism, interrogating power, borders and capital ‘while considering the ever-evolving facets of identity, self, and culture in a hyper-real world’.

Also from NewSouth, Why Are We Like This?: An evolutionary search for answers to life’s big questions (Zoe Kean, October 2024), is an ‘enjoyable and informative book for everyone, no matter their level of science literacy’, from a new-generation science communicator and TikTok creator. The Eyes of a Spider (James O’Hanlon, October) takes readers from the author’s Australian backyard to all corners of the globe (and even outer space!) to explore these fascinating creatures, while translation rights to the wonderfully titled Underground Lovers: Encounters with fungi (Alison Pouliot), which has already sold to Chicago University Press, are also available.

In nonfiction, Text has actor Sam Neill’s ‘unmissable memoir’ Did I Ever Tell You This? , a ‘revealing, heartwarming and often hilarious’, recounting of the unpredictable turns of fortune that have defined his life and career. Also in memoir, the publisher is offering The Last Daughter by Brenda Matthews, a ‘story of heartbreak and healing’ that tells of the earth-shattering experience of being stolen from home, and Fat Girl Dancing, ‘a staggeringly intimate story of fatness, beauty and self-knowledge’ by Stella Prize-shortlisted author Kris Kneen, who examines their body through the lens of art and dance.

Text is also pitching Big Meg (August), ‘a paleontological tour de force on the legendary Megalodon’, by Tim Flannery and his daughter Emma Flannery, and an as yet untitled new book by Sand Talk author Tyson Yunkaporta, described as ‘a formidably original yarn with Indigenous thought leaders from around the globe’.

Exisle is offering The Anxiety Coach (Michael Hawton), a guide for parents to helping their children’ overcome anxiety, lessen their worrying and reduce their avoidance of challenging tasks by building ‘the necessary brain architecture and perspective’ and creating the emotional reserves and balance needed throughout life. Meanwhile, Mindfulness at Play (Stephen McKenzie & Angela North) is for young people and those who support them, providing a combination of psychological knowledge and practical guiding principles ‘which will help parents help themselves, as well as their children, to achieve mindfulness’.

Also from Exisle, The Certainty Myth: How to be resilient when the world keeps changing (Toni Lindsay) promises we don’t have to be the victims of our circumstances, while The Clear Leader: How to lead well in a hyper-connected world (Craig S Hassed) is ‘the essential guide to leading well in today’s hyper-connected, tech-focused, and increasingly distracted world’. Finally, The Flourishing Woman (Cate Howell), is a ‘unique, holistic guide to fostering women’s mental health and wellbeing’ that emphasizes the influence of mental health and wellbeing on the prevention of ill-health, both physical and mental’, and on living a satisfying and meaningful life.

For the kids: Australian children’s and YA on offer at LBF

Winner of the 2022 Text Prize, Let’s Never Speak of This Again by Megan Williams (Text) is a ‘big-hearted YA debut’, which celebrates ‘the depth and strength of friendship through all of life’s ups and downs’. Another debut YA novel, also discovered through the Text Prize, is Robyn Dennison’s Blind Spot, ‘an immensely readable and unflinching look at teenage life’, in which ‘a heartening cast of characters remind us that no decision is black or white’.

Other books from Text include Allayne L Webster’s Selfie, a ‘captivating’ novel that explores the complex relationships that teenagers have with social media; The Hotel Witch, a ‘charming a spellbinding’ middle-grade from beloved children’s author Jessica Miller; and Holden Sheppard’s YA novel The Brink, in which a group of teenagers find themselves confront life-changing tragedy head-on.

Also look out for Sheppard’s Invisible Boys, Fremantle Press’s bestselling LGBTQIA+ novel, which is being developed for television and has been embraced by adult readers as much as by YA readers—Fremantle is looking for publishers willing to consider it in either market. Look out for recent YA collections of original writing from under-represented and diverse voices: anthologies Meet Me at the Intersection and Unlimted Futures, as well as An Unexpected Party, curated by trans editor Seth Malacari and due for publication in Australia in November this year; while world English-language rights to graphic novel Stars in Their Eyes (Jessica Walton and Aśka) have sold to Scholastic imprint Graphix and Fremantle is seeking foreign-language partners for this title. Fremantle is also excited to present I Am the Mau and other stories by Chemutai Glasheen, an enticing collection of YA contemporary fiction that explores the duality of Kenyan life and how to find a way between two cultures.

In picture books, Fremantle is offering James Foley’s Stellarphant, the multi-award-winning White Ravens book of 2022, and new title Timeless by Kelly Canby, ‘a stunning and thought-provoking picture book’ that follows Littlelight, The Hole Story and Rodney.

Storytorch Press is offering several illustrated titles at the fair. Naturopolis is Deborah Frenkel and Ingrid Bartkowjak’s lyrical celebration of urban flora and fauna. The book follows an ant to discover the scraps of wilderness hiding in plain sight, and is ‘a wonderful acknowledgement of the unseen, and the world that awaits the viewer, eager to connect with nature’. Great and Small follows Eunice the tiny unicorn, who dreams of competing in the Great Unicorn Games. ‘A celebration of universal design and our unique abilities, Great and Small celebrates what unifies us—our glorious diversity,’ says the publisher. What Will You Make Today? (Maura Pierlot and Triandhika Anjani) is a nonfiction picture book inviting children to explore the many ways they can make a difference in the world.

From Exisle’s children’s imprint EK Books are five picture books: Anchored is Debra Tidball and Arielle Li’s tale of love and connection told through the relationship of a tugboat and a cargo ship; Mama’s Chickens (Michelle Worthington and Nicky Johnston) is a ‘sensitive, beautifully illustrated book that used backyard chickens to give a closely observed child’s-eye view of early onset dementia’; Harriet’s Hungry Worms (Samantha Smith and Melissa Johns) is a ‘funny, engaging eco story’ that follows the adventures of compost worms as munch their way through a wide and wonderful weekly menu; When Grandma Burnt Her Bra (Samantha Tidy & Aśka) depicts the world as seen by a child whose own grandma, a ‘loud and proud feminist’, was part of the revolution that now benefits us all; and Nova’s Missing Masterpiece (Brooke Graham and Robin Tatlow-Lord) uses a girl’s bond with her dog to address the themes of anger, self-regulation, problem-solving, resilience and persistence.

Storytorch is also offering several children’s middle-grade fiction titles, including Starberries and Kee (Cate Whittle), which is described as ‘solar punk climate-fiction told with positivity and hope’. It follows Wren, a ‘wild child’ who has been brought up on the mountain by Old Man, and Hannah, who had always lived in the city. When their paths collide, a ‘secret friendship brings a family full circle, linking the past to the present and the old with the new’. Also from Storytorch is Ocean Warriors: The Rise of Robo-Shark (Candice Lemon-Scott), which follows Kai, who’s sent on summer camp to restore extinct sea creatures; and The Riddle of Tanglewood Manor, which follows brothers Sam and Harry as their parents set about renovating a 150-year-old house.

Emily Snape’s Game On! Shrinkle and Game On! Glitched are among the four middle-grade fiction titles EK Books will be offering at the fair. Game on! Shrinkle follows gaming-obsessed Max and his younger brother Liam, who are forced to work together to survive epic adventures on a miniscule scale. Meanwhile in Glitched, Max and Liam take a trip through time: can they survive the dangers and solve the riddles without killing each other? Other middle-grade fiction titles from EK Books are Ruby and the Pen and Xander and the Pen (David Lawrence and Cherie Dignam), in which the title characters buy a pen with a magical power—whatever they draw, happens.

Australian market: Christmas 2022 sales up but booksellers look to challenging year ahead

Title preview

The Disorganisation of Celia Stone

Summer of Blood

The Bell of the World

Call Me Marlowe

Rights sales and acquisitions

Australian titles selling internationally

Fiction sales

Black Inc. has sold world English-language rights (ex ANZ) to One Hundred Days by Alice Pung to HarperCollins imprint HarperVia. Shortlisted for the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award, One Hundred Days is Pung’s first novel for adults. Exploring the faultlines between love and control, the novel follows 16-year-old Karuna who falls pregnant and is confined to her 14th-storey housing commission flat by her over-protective mother. HarperVia will publish One Hundred Days in the US and the rest of the world (ex ANZ) in October 2023.

Giramondo has sold international rights to several Alexis Wright books. In North America, New York-based independent press New Directions will publish Alexis Wright’s forthcoming novel Praiseworthy (April) and her novel Carpentaria, winner of the 2007 Miles Franklin Literary Award. New Directions president and publisher Barbara Epler looks forward to ‘blowing open new doors in the minds of American readers’ with both titles.

Pantera Press has sold world English rights (excluding ANZ) to Amal Awad’s novel Courting Samira to Gretchen Schmid at HarperVia, an imprint of HarperCollins. Courting Samira is a romantic comedy following a young Palestinian Australian woman, a magazine assistant from a ‘traditional-ish’ Muslim family, who, after an endless parade of underwhelming potential suitors and one too many days spent making coffee for a boss who doesn’t even know her name, is about to give up hope when she suddenly finds herself torn between two intriguing opportunities in both her professional life and love life.

Nonfiction sales

Laura Apperson at Alcove Press has acquired world English-language rights (ex ANZ) to The Laughter Effect: How to build joy, resilience and positivity in your life by Ros Ben-Moshe, in a deal made with Sophy Williams at Nero Books. Publishing in Australia in April next year, The Laughter Effect is ‘a powerful philosophy that enhances wellbeing and provides you with a road map to tap into the lighter side of life and awaken both your inner and outer smile’, according to the publisher. The Laughter Effect will be published in the US in spring 2024.

Black Inc. has sold North American rights to forthcoming memoir I’d Rather Not (July 2023) by Robert Skinner to Chip Fleischer at Steerforth Press, in a deal made with Black Inc. international director Sophy Williams. I’d Rather Not is described by the publisher as an ‘original and utterly hilarious memoir by one of Australia’s most wryly funny writers’. Publishing in July, it follows Skinner’s arrival in the city, searching for a richer life. I’d Rather Not will be published in paperback in the US fall of 2023.

Gregory Messina of Linwood Messina Literary Agency has sold world English rights (ex ANZ) to Paul Callaghan’s The Dreaming Path: Indigenous thinking to change your life, written with Uncle Paul Gordon, to Gabriella Page-Fort at HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins. Published locally by Pantera Press in February 2022, The Dreaming Path brings Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal worldviews together to provide tips, practices, inspiration and motivation ‘that can enable you to achieve a state of mind, body and spirit wellness’, according to the publisher.

Latest acquisitions: Fiction

Affirm Press has acquired world rights to One Divine Night by Mick Cummins, the winner of the 2023 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award (VPLA) for an unpublished manuscript, in a deal brokered by Jane Novak Literary Agency. One Divine Night is ‘a gritty and compelling novel exploring homelessness, independence and the ties that bind’, according to the publisher. It follows protagonist Aaron Peters as he becomes estranged from his family, addicted to heroin, and ends up living on the streets of Melbourne but yearning for a different life. One Divine Night will be published by Affirm Press in late 2023.

Allen & Unwin (A&U) has acquired ANZ rights to Search History, the debut novel by Melbourne writer Amy Taylor. Described by A&U as ‘a compelling and hilarious’ send-up of modern dating and sex both on- and offline, Search History is about a woman’s obsession with her new boyfriend’s seemingly perfect dead ex-girlfriend. ‘Think a modern version of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca reimagined for the age of social media by Phoebe Waller-Bridge.’ An adapted chapter of Search History was selected as a winner in the 2021 Ultimo Prize. Search History will be published in May 2023.

A&U has also acquired world rights to Trish Bolton’s debut novel Life Itself. Rights were acquired by A&U publisher Jane Palfreyman and executive editor Genevieve Buzo. Life Itself is a novel about grief, family, female friendship, ageing and ageism, told from the perspectives of four women aged between 40 and 80 who are reappraising their lives in the wake of an unexpected loss. The novel will be published in the first half of 2024.

Echo Publishing has acquired world rights to debut novel That is All by Liam Murphy via the NAC Literary Agency. The novel follows young Australian Mark Ward’s quest for redemption in a road trip across the United States, retracing the footsteps that his father, who abandoned Mark as a child, chronicled in letters to his mother 20 years earlier. That is All will be published in early 2024.

Read the full article here.

Latest acquisitions: Nonfiction

Latest acquisitions: Children’s and YA

Award winners

De Kretser, Parker-Chan internationally recognised

Australian authors recognised recently with international awards include Michelle de Kretser, who won the fiction category of the 2023 Rathbones Folio Prize for her novel Scary Monsters (A&U), and Shelley Parker-Chan, who won two British Fantasy Awards, taking out both best fantasy novel and best newcomer for She Who Became the Sun (Tor), as well as winning the Best New Writer category at the Hugo Awards for science fiction.

Sydney-based writer and translator Tiffany Tsao has also been recognised internationally, winning the PEN Translation Prize for her translation of People from Bloomington (Budi Darma, Penguin Classics).

In Australian awards, Runt by Craig Silvey (Allen & Unwin) was named book of the year at the independent booksellers’ 2023 Indie Awards. Other winners included Horse by Geraldine Brooks (Hachette) and All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien (HarperCollins), which also won the 2023 MUD Literary Prize.

The Other Half of You (Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Hachette) and Lies, Damned Lies (Claire G Coleman, Ultimo) were among the winners of the 2022 Queensland Literary Awards; Jaireth won the Australian Capital Territory Book of the Year for his essay collection Spinoza’s Overcoat: Travels with writers and poets (Transit Lounge); and in the 2022 Age Book of the Year awards Miles Allinson won the fiction catefory for his second novel In Moonland (Scribe), while Bernadette Brennan took out nonfiction for Leaping Into Waterfalls: The enigmatic Gillian Mears (A&U).

Revenge: Murder in three parts (S L Lim, Transit Lounge) took out the 2022 Barbara Jefferis Award, while in crime, debut novel Cutters End (Margaret Hickey, Penguin) won the 2022 Danger Prize.

And in awards that recognise unpublished talent, Steph Vizard has won the HarperCollins Banjo Prize for her enemies-to-lovers romance ‘The Love Contract’; Brendan Ritchie won the 2022 Dorothy Hewett Award for his novel Eta Draconis (UWA), and Becca Wang won Hardie Grant Books’s Spark Prize for her nonfiction book proposal ‘Birth Right’.

Profile

We Come With This Place: Debra Dank on her debut and what comes next

Ahead of the London Book Fair, Think Australian talks to author Debra Dank, whose debut memoir is in the running for three NSW Premier’s awards and the Stella Prize, about the book’s journey to publication, what she hopes international readers might take from it, and plans for her second book.

Your book We Come With This Place (Echo) has been shortlisted for three NSW Premier’s literary awards and longlisted for this year’s Stella Prize. Can you tell us about your process of writing it?

Certainly the lead up to the book kind of happened in all the ways you listed—years in the making, in a burst, winding, ruler straight, collaborative and yes, insanely private but created for public sharing. It is the recount of some of the events which have shaped and impacted lives in my family. As a process then to complete the PhD, it was important and significant to do justice to those whose acts have been recounted in words. I was conscious of treating all of those ‘characters’ with the utmost respect but also with the gentle love I have always received in my family. And I needed to remain true to who they are and what they did and not create a false, shiny new discourse.

Due to the book starting its life as part of my PhD, with no intention to be a book, my supervisor was so very supportive and helpful in making me understand that I could shape this into what I would like for it to be. She was truly such a big part of what the final product is. For example, I didn’t want chapters because that is not how these stories work, so she said, ‘don’t have chapters’. Associate Professor Antonia Pont provided the opportunity for me to be courageous in making this work for these stories hence episodes and the nonlinear storying as it exists in my community became the format of this narrative collection.

Can you share what considerations or protocols you had to think about when telling this story?

Both my parents have passed away but for many years, both mum and dad urged me to write down some of our stories. My parents are amazing people—I cannot speak of them in the past tense because they are still here—so I had their desire and permission to write about our stuff. I really wanted them to be represented in ways that were authentic, and again, not shiny. My aunt was also part of the permissions that were vitally important to me. She was beside me as I raised my children on Country. She is also now passed away, but she taught me so much about being Gudanji/Wajaka, she walked me and my children across our Country and taught us with more patience than a human body should be able to contain. I tried desperately hard to be what my parents and my aunt would expect of me.

Non-human relationships and the protocols of how my community engages with our non-human kin was and remains a normal behaviour. It’s how and what we do as Gudanji/Wakaja people. Listening carefully, in ways that are different to the understanding I have of the utilisation of a ‘sense’, is done through a whole-of-body listening. Only when we listen with our whole body do we hear the stories of those non-human kin. If we, Gudanji/Wakaja mob, don’t listen in this way, then we lose the opportunity to live well with Country and then bad things happen. This is one of the big protocols I was taught as a child and it is one of the big protocols that I have taught my own children.

Read the full article here.

Bestsellers