RISE funding for Australia Reads, latest awards

The Australia Reads campaign and ALIA’s Online Storytime initiative are among the latest recipients of the federal government’s RISE funding.

A new bookshop, The Chestnut Tree, has opened in Melbourne’s inner west. Meanwhile, Auckland booksellers remain in level four lockdown, under which they’re unable to sell online. The program for this year’s Australian Short Story Festival, which is scheduled to ahead in-person in Adelaide, has also been announced.

In awards news, Robbie Arnott’s The Rain Heron won the revived Age Book of the Year award; the winners of the $10,000 ACU Poetry Prize and NSW Premier’s History Awards were announced; and the longlist for this year’s Richell Prize was revealed. The Stella Prize has also rebranded and expanded its eligibility to include poetry collections.

Overseas, the US book industry is facing major supply chain challenges ahead of the busy holiday season. The Beijing Book Fair is going ahead later this month as the Chinese book market continues to grow. In other international news, UK writer Salman Rushdie will publish his next book on digital newsletter platform Substack.

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Category: This week’s news