Dunn named 2024 Rising Star, Hammer wins ACT Book of the Year, SA Literary Awards shortlist announced
In local news this week, the Australian Publishers Association (APA) has confirmed that 14 publishers will attend the 2024 Frankfurt Book Fair on the APA collective stand; attendance was up 18% at the 2024 Byron Writers Festival; the PANZ Publishing Market Size Report for 2023 revealed that total publishing revenue in Aotearoa New Zealand is down 3.7% on 2022; Creative Australia has announced it will combine the International Travel Fund with other programs; and almost 30 publishers and agents took part in this year’s Books at MIFF pitching event.
Meanwhile, this week brought a bunch of award winners and nominees: ADS distribution director Riikka Dunn was named the 2024 APA Rising Star; Chris Hammer won the ACT Book of the Year Award for The Seven (A&U); shortlists were announced for the NSW Premier’s History Awards, the South Australian Literary Awards, the Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award, the 2024 Readings Children’s Book Prize, and the Ned Kelly Awards; and the longlist for the 2024 Nib Literary Award was also revealed.
Overseas, more awards news: the 2024 Hugo Award winners have been revealed, and the shortlist for the 2024 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize has been announced. In other international news, HarperCollins parent company News Corp announced its fourth quarter and annual results, showing the publisher’s audio sales were up 18% and overall sales were up 6%; and Orbit UK has launched a new horror imprint, Run For It.
In rights news, Affirm has acquired world rights to Madeleine Cleary’s debut historical novel, The Butterfly Women, for publication in April 2025.
Elsewhere in book-related writings, Rajiv Thind wrote for the ABC on ‘how the West created an upper-caste echo chamber’ in Indian-English fiction.
Category: This week’s news
