Llewellyn steps down; Bell named Hazel Rowley fellow; 2023 VIPs announced

The Wheeler Centre CEO Caro Llewellyn has announced her resignation and will vacate the role at the end of her contract in July this year, to focus on writing and other creative endeavours; UQP has announced its 2022 sales results, boasting a 15.4% increase in trade sales value, a 10.2% increase in ebook sales value and 105% increase in direct sales value in the last calendar year; and the Australia Council has announced the 14 international publishers, editors, and literary agents participating in the 22nd year of the Visiting International Publishers (VIPs).

The Publishers Association of New Zealand Te Rau o Tākupu (PANZ) has announced the completion of its report Climate Action for the New Zealand Publishing Industry: A snapshot and a pathway forward; the Bendigo Writers Festival (BWF) has announced its program for the festival running from 4–7 May; and QBD Books has announced the opening of a new store in Frankston, Victoria.

In awards news, writer and anthropologist Diane Bell has been awarded Writers Victoria’s $20,000 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship; the longlists for the 2023 Australian Book Design Awards, presented by the Australian Book Designers Association, have been announced; Penguin Random House Australia has announced the shortlist for the 2023 Penguin Literary Prize; and the shortlists for the 2022 Aurealis Awards, presented for science fiction, fantasy and horror writing in Australia, have been announced.

Overseas, in the US, Hachette Book Group and HarperCollins US are both offering voluntary redundancy packages to select employees, while in the UK, the shortlist for the Baillie Gifford Winner of Winners Award—being held to celebrate the prize’s 25th anniversary—has been announced; and writer Jackie McCann and illustrator Aaron Cushley have won the £10,000 (A$18,280) Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize for If the World Were 100 People (Red Shed).

Category: This week’s news