Wright becomes two-time Miles Franklin winner; UBD to rebrand; Hazard to join Keeperton
Alexis Wright has won the 2024 Miles Franklin Literary Award, worth $60,000, for her novel Praiseworthy (Giramondo), becoming a two-time winner; former Hachette Australia group publishing director Fiona Hazard has joined new publishing venture Keeperton; UQP director Ben James is stepping down; United Book Distributors has announced it will rebrand to Penguin Random House Distribution; Hachette and Media Diversity Australia have partnered on new traineeship; Australian Geographic and Hardie Grant are partnering on a new publishing program; and the Blues Point Bookshop in Sydney will remain in business—across the road.
The Copyright Agency has named Maya Mulhall, a teacher from Blackburn High School in Victoria, the 2024 Reading Australia Fellow, and the projects to be funded through its 2024 Cultural Fund program; and Creative Australia has announced the 2024 recipients of grants from several funds supporting Australian literature.
In addition to the Miles Franklin, the following awards news was announced this week: the winners of the Aotearoa New Zealand Book Industry Awards were announced; Robbie Arnott won the $25,000 Dick and Joan Green Family Award for Tasmanian History for Limberlost; the shortlists for the 2024 Queensland Literary Awards were announced, as were the shortlists for the 2024 Danger Awards; and Australian author Amanda Hildebrandt was a runner up in the 2024 Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize which went to London-based writer Sukie Wilson.
Looking overseas, in the UK the Bookseller reports that academic publishers Wiley and Oxford University Press have confirmed AI partnerships, and that United Independent Distributors has entered administration, and Martin MacInnes has won the Arthur C Clarke award with In Ascension, while in the US, a new report from Circana BookScan shows print sales of middle-grade books fell 5% in the first half of 2024 from the comparable period in 2023, with 1.8 million fewer copies sold, reports Publishers Weekly.
In acquisitions news this week, UQP has acquired two new books by Omar Sakr, and Allen & Unwin has acquired One Hundred Years of Betty by Debra Oswald.
Category: This week’s news
