Publishers’ picks: Australian nonfiction
Food and family, AI, and escaping a cult: The Australian nonfiction publishers have high hopes for at LBF
Sandra Buol, rights and international sales manager at Australian independent Allen & Unwin, will be attending LBF in person, and singles out the ‘deeply personal and evocative memoir about love, food and family reconciliation, Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You by Candice Chung’, among the titles she will spotlight at the fair.
‘I was able to sell UK rights last year and both our edition and the UK edition (Elliott & Thompson) will be published in April. Thanks to a joint effort in securing pre-publication blurbs and reviews, my aim is to give this book another push in the hope for a US deal, and to support our translation co-agents in their territories,’ said Buol.
The book charts the story of Chung’s family’s attempts to get close as she counts down to her move from Sydney to Scotland. ‘It’s a literary testament of Candice falling in love and making space for a partner, and it’s a formally innovative tribute to her parents and the part they play in each other’s lives through migration and assimilation, but it is also an accessible story for anyone who has ever found their loved one’s emotional worlds impenetrable, except for those fragile, bright-hearted moments around a shared meal,’ said Buol, who added that there were ‘a million reasons’ she knew she was going to love the book, including her own experience joining a Cantonese family.
‘I cook a decent spam fried rice and my spice tolerance has significantly improved in the past seven years. I’ve come a long way since my wife looked at the soy sauce I brought home from the shops and judged it to be “white people’s soy sauce”. I’ve been on the receiving end of awkward hugs and a mumbled “we love you” from my in-laws.’ But, Buol added, ‘most importantly: Candice’s story resonates across cultures and generations’.
‘It’s a story about growing up between two diametrically opposed cultures. About assimilation and the price of it. About uprooting a life, of being a migrant, by necessity or by choice. About what’s holding us together as family in the end. And about finding love, and what we are willing to do for it.’
Also attending LBF in person will be Hayley Tomlinson, rights and contracts manager at Rockpool, alongside Rockpool managing director Lisa Hanrahan.
‘Although the Rockpool brand has become synonymous with oracle and tarot cards’, Tomlinson highlighted something different from the publisher’s list: ‘It’s called In the End: A Parting Gift for Your Loved Ones, written by journalist Lisa Doust and featuring artwork by Melanie Vugich,’ said Tomlinson of the ‘modern journal’, which ‘provides space to reflect on positive experiences, record vital information (wills, Power of Attorney, digital access, and social media strategies after death…), and ensure loved ones are supported when it matters most’.
‘As interest in mindfulness and intentional living continues to grow worldwide, I feel In the End is an essential addition to the guided journal space. Its universal relevance makes it an ideal title for international markets, resonating with other publishers and, in turn, readers looking for a balanced approach to both life reflection and practical preparation. One other benefit of journals in the rights space is that, as the word counts tend to be lower, they’re a desirable candidate for translation.’
At NewSouth, which will be represented at LBF by product manager Kathryn Hunt, the team highlighted Vaccine Nation: Science, Reason and the Threat to 200 Years of Progress by Raina MacIntyre as a strong candidate for international interest.
‘Vaccination rates are falling globally and there’s an explosion of pseudoscience and disinformation,’ said NewSouth executive publisher Elspeth Menzies. ‘At this critical time, world-leading epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre argues that science must reclaim the stage, or we will lose centuries of gains that vaccines have brought to the world. There’s never been a more important time for this book to be published in Australia and internationally.’
Also attending the fair in person will be Black Inc. publisher and international director Sophy Williams, who singles out a title on the topic that will almost certainly be the most discussed at LBF 2025.
‘We’re most excited about presenting Toby Walsh’s The Shortest History of AI in London,’ said Williams. ‘This timely little book distils AI into six key ideas so people can understand how AI came to be and what to expect in the future. Surely a must-read in these times! Ahead of its publication in May 2025, we have already sold rights in North America, Korea, Taiwan, India, Spain and Vietnam.’
Finally, while not attending the fair in person, Pantera is hoping for international interest for the nonfiction title Cult Bride: How I Was Brainwashed and How I Broke Free (Liz Cameron), ‘the extraordinary true story’ of how Cameron, as an 18-year-old on a gap year in Canberra, Australia, was approached at a shopping centre by a woman who, unbeknown to her, was a recruiting agent for Providence, a Christian cult that originated in South Korea and currently operates in 72 countries.
Said publisher Tom Langshaw: ‘How are people like you and me brainwashed into cults? This is an extraordinary true story about how one woman was trapped by a predatory cult – in Canberra, Sydney and South Korea – before breaking free and remaking her life. Liz’s powerful, candid memoir is a timely wake-up call for us to take the coercive control of cults more seriously.’
Read about the fiction Australian publishers have the highest hopes for at LBF here.
Category: Think Australian feature
