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.
Category: Think Australian rights
