2022 Australian Market Overview
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
The Australian book market is trading well above the last pre-Covid year of 2019 after three consecutive years of growth. Sales of books in Australia grew 7.2% last year to...
First Nations YA to look out for
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
A debut young adult title by Lystra Rose, a descendant of the Guugu Yimithirr, Birri Gubba, Erub and Scottish nations, took out the prestigious $25,000 Indigenous writing prize in the...
Junior and middle-grade fiction offerings
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
In junior fiction on offer at Bologna this year, Hardie Grant Children's Publishing has Monsties: The Lost Bunny (Zanni Louise & Kyla May) featuring Orla, Pearl, Mig, Boo and Oops—five...
Pitching pictures at Bologna
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
Experiences in nature fill many of the picture books on offer from Australian publishers at Bologna this year. Thank you rain! (Sally Morgan & Johnny Warrkatja Malibirr, Magabala Books) is...
The fascinating truth: Nonfiction titles on offer at Bologna
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
In nonfiction the 'long-awaited' picture book Your Brain is a Lump of Goo from Idan Ben-Barak (A&U), the award-winning author of Do Not Lick This Book, and Christopher Nielsen. It explores...
Aus publishers’ latest acquisitions
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
Among the latest children's and YA acquisitions by Australian publishers: Children's Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing (HGCP) has acquired two books by Maxine Beneba Clarke. Releasing in June 2023, It’s the...
Baby boom: The growth of children’s and young adult market
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
Children’s and young adult (CYA) titles have been driving the growth of the Australian book market in the past year, with titles like Heartstopper, Bluey and The Bad Guys becoming...
Australian titles with international appeal
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
Discover the latest rights opportunities from Australian publishers and literary agents participating in the Australian Collective Stand at Bologna. View the Stand Catalogue here, featuring over 50 children’s and YA...
Award winners
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
Lystra Rose has won the $25,000 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing for her YA debut novel The Upwelling (Hachette Australia), while We Who Hunt the Hollow (Kate Murray, HGCP)...
Graphic novel researcher: ‘Australian publishers are hungry for titles’
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
Sophie Splatt, an editor of books for children and young adults at Allen & Unwin for the past decade, is the Australian Publishers Association's (APA) 2023 Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellow....
Spotlight on Annabel Barker
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
The launch of your own agency was quickly followed by the pandemic; how did that affect what you were pitching and how you were making deals? Like others, I had...
Spotlight on Jess Racklyeft
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
Melbourne-based author and illustrator Jess Racklyeft has been awarded a Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) International Bologna Scholarship to attend this year’s Bologna book fair. Here she...
Australian creators recommend
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
Australian creators tell us the most recent book they have read and loved, and why. Illustrator and author Jess Racklyeft will attend this year's Bologna Book Fair as the...
Australian children’s and YA bestsellers for 2023 YTD
Monday, 20 February 2023
Children’s books boomed in Australia during the pandemic and continue to be a success story for the market. According to data from Nielsen BookScan, the children’s category was up 7.7%...
Quiet Time with My Seeya (Dinalie Dabarera, A&U Children’s)
Tuesday, 14 February 2023
Quiet Time with My Seeya is the debut solo picture book by Dinalie Dabarera, whose previous illustrations in The Cat With The Coloured Tail were nominated for the CBCA Award...
Thirst for Salt (Madelaine Lucas, A&U)
Tuesday, 7 February 2023
Madelaine Lucas’s debut novel opens with the unnamed female narrator, now 37 years old, recalling a past lover. Twenty-four years old at the time and holidaying with her mother, the...
Philomella and the Impossible Forest (Doris Brett, HGCP)
Tuesday, 7 February 2023
Philomella is having a perfectly ordinary terrible day when she stumbles across a door that shouldn’t be there that leads to a library which is, frankly, impossible. Sick of being...
Country Tells Us When… (Tsheena Cooper, Mary Dann, Dalisa Pigram-Ross & Sheree Ford, ILF)
Tuesday, 7 February 2023
Country Tells Us When… follows the feelings, smells, sights, tastes and sounds of Yawuru Country changing with each season, written and illustrated by educators Tsheena Cooper, Mary Dann, Dalisa Pigram-Ross,...
The Anniversary (Stephanie Bishop, Hachette)
Tuesday, 7 February 2023
The Anniversary is a book that’s hard to describe: the writing is quiet, meandering, full of thoughts on art and the act of creative expression. And yet, it is also...
Love & Autism (Kay Kerr, Macmillan)
Tuesday, 31 January 2023
Apart from the obvious audience—fans of the award-winning TV series Love on the Spectrum—Love & Autism by CBCA nominee Kay Kerr will also appeal to readers who like to be...
The Quiet and the Loud (Helena Fox, Pan)
Tuesday, 31 January 2023
Helena Fox, author of award-winning debut How It Feels to Float, returns with another powerful, heart-tugging YA novel. Nine years after her dad disappeared under the lake, 18-year-old George is...
Glass Houses (Anne Coombs, Upswell)
Tuesday, 31 January 2023
Glass Houses is Anne Coombs’s (Sex and Anarchy: The life and death of the Sydney Push) posthumous final novel. Perched on a ‘neglected hillside’ near the fictional town of Glaston...
Fed to Red Birds (Rijn Collins, S&S)
Tuesday, 24 January 2023
Rijn Collins’s novel Fed to Red Birds is beguiling and moody. Our heroine, Elva, is an Australian–Icelandic woman in her mid-20s. She’s living in Reykjavik to learn Icelandic, connect with...
Nightbirds (Kate J Armstrong, A&U Children’s)
Tuesday, 24 January 2023
Magic is illegal in Simta, punishable by death, but that does not mean it does not exist. Matilde, Æsa, and Sayer are nightbirds: privileged girls who have the ability to...
The Glow (Sofie Laguna, illus by Marc McBride, A&U Children’s)
Tuesday, 17 January 2023
The Song of Lewis Carmichael brought us the excellent pairing of author Sofie Laguna and illustrator Marc McBride. The Glow is their latest collaboration, a thrilling sci-fi adventure with a...
The Wakes (Dianne Yarwood, Hachette)
Tuesday, 17 January 2023
When Clare’s husband tells her one night that he’s unhappy, she’s not sure what to do—but helping her new friend Louisa start a funeral catering business is the last thing...
The Hotel Witch (Jessica Miller, Text)
Tuesday, 6 December 2022
With a cast of larger-than-life characters that almost pop off the page, The Hotel Witch is the wonderfully imaginative new adventure from Jessica Miller, who previously brought us The Republic...
Viking Women (Lisa Hannett, Thames & Hudson)
Tuesday, 6 December 2022
Literature academic and speculative fiction author Lisa Hannett has written an evocative account of the varied lives of women during the Viking era. Hannett uses her vast knowledge of Vikings...
The One Thing We’ve Never Spoken About (Elfy Scott, Pantera)
Tuesday, 29 November 2022
In The One Thing We’ve Never Spoken About, Sydney-based journalist and podcast presenter Elfy Scott uses her talent for explaining complicated issues in accessible ways to examine the myths and...
Easy Peasy (Ky Garvey, illus by Amy Calautti, EK Books)
Tuesday, 22 November 2022
When Ruby is given a pair of fabulous sparkly red roller skates for her birthday, she expects to be able to skate, equally fabulously, immediately—easy peasy. Of course, it isn’t...
