Jones receives Creative Australia Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature; Flanagan wins Baillie Gifford Prize; Wright, Tiffany 2024 Melbourne Prize winners
Headlining awards news, Gail Jones won the Creative Australia Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature; Alexis Wright won the Melbourne Prize for Literature, and Carrie Tiffany won the Writers Prize; the Australian Society of Authors announced joint winners for the 2024 Barbara Jefferis Award: Sara M Saleh for Songs for the Dead and the Living (Affirm) and Lucy Treloar for Days of Innocence and Wonder (Picador); Andrew Fowler won the Walkley Book Award for Nuked (MUP); and in the UK, Richard Flanagan won the 2024 Baillie Gifford Prize for Nonfiction for Question 7 (Knopf).
In a busy week for local news, Margot Lloyd and Emily Hart announced the establishment of new publishing venture Pink Shorts Press, which will launch in Adelaide during Adelaide Writers’ Week in March 2025; while Alice Wood has announced the launch of new communications agency Novel Concept Brand Management; the Diversity in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand Children’s Book Award organisation (DANZ) announced it is planning a (free) children’s book festival; and in Aotearoa New Zealand, the Publishers Association of New Zealand Te Rau o Tākupu (PANZ), in collaboration with Diversity Works, released a report communicating findings from a diversity baseline survey conducted among member organisations late last year.
Meanwhile, the Guardian reported that a group of over 90 Australian authors and other members of the literary community gave Australian federal parliamentarians a ‘carefully curated package of books on the Middle East to expand their knowledge of the history of the conflict,’ as part of their Summer Reading for MPs campaign.
And, in moves and changes, Yen Press is partnering with Hachette Australia, Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand, and Alliance Distribution Services (ADS) for sales and distribution throughout Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand; QBD Books announced it will open a new bookstore at Stockland Wendouree in Ballarat, Victoria; and Booktopia announced a number of staff appointments, following the acquisition of the business by digiDirect owner Shant Kradjian.
Meanwhile, in Aotearoa New Zealand, Storylines Children’s Literature Trust Te Whare Waituhi Tamariki o Aotearoa announced the 2024 Storylines Notable Book Award winners; and Susanna Andrew has been appointed manager of Unity Books Wellington.
In international news, in the US, Publishers Weekly reported that independent distributor National Book Network will close next year; and HarperCollins has become the first of the Big Five publishers to accept an AI licensing deal; and in the UK, travel bookseller WH Smith announced its total revenue in its travel category was up 11% for the year ended 31 August 2024.
In local acquisition news, UWA Publishing acquired world rights to Pip Smith’s YA novel The Pull of the Moon; University of Queensland Press acquired ANZ rights to a new middle-grade novel by Fiona Wood, titled The Boy and the Dog Tree, in a two-book deal, via Katelyn Detweiler of Jill Grinberg Literary Management; Allen & Unwin acquired ANZ rights to Liar’s Game, the third book in Jack Beaumont’s Frenchman series of thrillers, via Laura Bonner of WME; Murdoch Books acquired world rights to She Births by Nadine Richardson; and Simon & Schuster Australia acquired world rights to two novels in a new romance series from Kat T Masen.
Two book-to-screen adaptations have also been announced: The Woman Who Fooled the World (Beau Donelly & Nick Toscano, Scribe) as the series Apple Cider Vinegar; and The Hunted (Gabriel Bergmoser, HarperCollins) as a film of the same name.
Elsewhere in literary channels, Penni Russon wrote for the Conversation on celebrity children’s books: ‘The problem with most celebrity children’s books is not that they are bad, but that they are derivative,’ Russon said, later adding: ‘Every celebrity children’s book under the Christmas tree is a missed opportunity to connect readers with writers. And I think this doesn’t just sell children’s writers and illustrators short. It undervalues children as readers as well.’
Category: This week’s news
