Hardie Grant acquires Pantera, new Perth literature festival, De Tores wins 2024 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize
Hardie Grant has signed an agreement to acquire Pantera Press, with completion of the sale set for 30 September, subject to customary closing conditions.
Perth Festival has announced that it will run a new literary festival, which it plans to hold for the first time in spring 2026; while Canberra Writers Festival has announced its 2024 program. In other local news this week, author Will Kostakis has been appointed to the Public Lending Right Committee for a four-year term as an author representative; and Victorian wholesaler The Brand Licensing Group has partnered with Canadian children’s publisher Phidal Publishing to distribute its books into the Australian market.
It was a big week for awards, with Māori and Pasifika designers winning the top honours at the 2024 PANZ Book Design Awards, as Rewi: Āta Haere, Kia Tere (Jade Kake & Jeremy Hansen, Massey University Press) took out four awards including the award for best book. Also in Aotearoa New Zealand, Jacqueline Leckie has been awarded the 2024 NZSA Peter and Dianne Beatson Fellowship.
Meanwhile, Australian author Francesca de Tores won the 2024 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize for Best Published Novel for her novel Saltblood (Bloomsbury), making this the second year in a row that an Australian author has won the UK-based award; and the Hunter Writers’ Centre announced the winners of the 2024 Newcastle Poetry Prize, with ‘Dombóvár’ by Christopher (Kit) Kelen awarded first place.
Three shortlists were also revealed this week: the Barbara Jefferis Award shortlist; the Chief Minister’s NT Book Awards shortlist; and the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award shortlist.
In the UK, as academic publishers (and their authors) continue to contend with developments in generative AI, Sage is the latest publisher to be ‘considering’ licensing authors’ content to AI companies, according to the Bookseller.
In acquisitions news this week, HQ, a division of HarperCollins Australia, acquired ANZ rights to Arianne James’ debut gothic novel, Second Skin; Allen & Unwin acquired world rights to Toby Schmitz’s debut novel, The Empress Murders; Penguin Random House Australia acquired ANZ rights to The Mortons by Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier in a two-book deal at auction; and Affirm Press acquired world rights to Carol Lefevre’s memoir Bloomer.
Elsewhere in bookish writings, Australian YA author Lydia Schofield has penned an opinion piece for Grattan Street Press, saying: ‘We do not give youth literature—picture books, middle grade and YA—the space it deserves in our national book conversation, and we are all worse off for it.’
Category: This week’s news
