What a month! We started June with the Reading Matters conference in Melbourne, exploring the world of YA. There were some fascinating international authors as well as great local talent, with a lot of the discussion focused on the need for diversity in young adult books. Fremantle Press has always sought to bring readers the very best writing from as wide a range of voices as we can – from classics such as Sally Morgan’s My Place right up to our forthcoming August title Swimming on the Lawn by Yasmin Hamid.
To celebrate the release of his new picture book, One Thousand Trees, award-winning artist Kyle Hughes-Odgers will be touring Perth, Melbourne and Sydney on 21–29 June. Bringing his talents as an internationally renowned muralist to the fore, Kyle will be creating a series of bespoke window artworks in bookstores around the country, each uniquely designed and hand-painted.
Fremantle Press congratulates poet Caitlin Maling on receiving a 2017 Marten Bequest scholarship. Caitlin has been awarded $50,000 to further her eco-critical practice through residencies and research in Australia and in Italy.
Sydney Writers Festival was held on the last week of May and with it the Visiting International Publishers (VIP) program, which I attended at the invitation of the Australia Council for the Arts to pitch our books to publishers from around the world. The VIP is an annual event and a great opportunity for local publishers who can’t always attend the international book fairs to have international agents and publishers come to us.
In May 2017 the Australian Publishers Association (APA) ran its ninth biennial Residential Editorial Program (REP) funded by the Australia Council for the Arts and the publishing industry. Fremantle Press senior editor Naama Grey-Smith was one of the twelve literary editors selected nationally to attend. She tells us about the experience in this guest post.
This year our resident robot expert James Foley will be heading to the Sydney Writers Festival to talk about ideas, illustration and of course – robots. James will be running author talks and workshops for kids (and kids at heart) on 27–28 May.
Murder in the library or murder in a bookshop? If you’re a New Zealander – the choice is yours. Alan Carter will be launching his new book Marlborough Man at Volume on Wednesday 31 May. A day later, he’ll be at the Elma Turner Library with fellow crime writers Fiona Sussman and David Briggs as host Karen Stade cross-examines them on how they blend page-turning crime plots with fascinating characters and real-life themes.
