Category: News

Synchronicity – it’s a ‘thing’ for many authors. During the research and writing of each story in my historical ‘Light’ series I’ve experienced delightfully unnerving coincidences, making me wonder how books come about. Do I choose the story or does the story choose me? In the case of The Last Light Horse, perhaps it’s the […]

Australian animals are unique and interesting in so many ways. Sadly, many are endangered, yet people know little about them. Here are some interesting facts about the animals that appear in my picture book Where Do the Stars Go? I hope these lists give you lots to talk about when you read my book. Brushtail […]

Chosen as Apple’s Book of the Month in April, one reviewer described Brigid’s book, A Year of Loving Kindness to Myself, and Other Essays, as ‘an exquisitely unembellished Zen lesson in the art of attention’. As Brigid explains below, cultivating that attention can be a key source of inspiration for students in creative writing. Lists […]

This book didn’t start life as a book. It began as therapeutic journaling to deal with the trauma that re-emerged when the man who violently attacked me in my workplace was, some twenty-five years later, arrested and charged with brutal rape and murder. When Bradley Robert Edwards was arrested in 2016 for a series of […]

He’s over there! I recently finished reading How to End a Story, Helen Garner’s third volume of her edited diaries. I read it as my daughter was studying Monkey Grip for her VCE. In a captivating February session at the Perth Festival Writers Weekend, Garner told interviewer Gillian O’Shaughnessy that some reviewers complained that Monkey […]

Born in 1927, Gladys Milroy was taken to the Parkerville Orphanage at two years old and spent the next 14 years separated from her mother, Daisy. Gladys say, ‘I think the thing is about growing up in an orphanage is that you live in a story all the time because that’s the way you survive.’

Three Fremantle Press titles are in the running for major awards and another has been highly commended, plus the life’s work of a Fremantle Press writer has been remembered and recognised. Stellarphant is shortlisted for the 2022 Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Picture Book of the Year and the 2021 Aurealis Award for Best Children’s […]

Ethics of Representation panellist Rashida Murphy.

nlimited Futures: Visionary, Speculative Blak and Black Fiction is now available and we’re over the moon for all the contributors, editors, designers and publishers involved. A week past the release, we asked editors Rafeif Ismail and Ellen van Neerven to reflect on the journey thus far.

Twelve Fremantle Press writers have been shortlisted in the 2021 WA Premier’s Book Awards across four categories. In the emerging writers category, the novels Eye of a Rook by Josephine Taylor and Locust Summer by David Allan-Petale, and the poetry collection Vociferate by Emily Sun, made the shortlist. In The Premier’s Prize for Writing for […]

Michael Burrows joins fellow debut writers Diana Reid and Ella Baxter as this year’s Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelists. As reported in SMH’s Spectrum, the judges felt the three novelists stood out from the many other entrants for their ‘strong narrative voices, memorable characters and sharp writing – they’ll make you laugh, cry […]

Sharron Booth had been working on her novel The Silence of Water years before it was shortlisted for the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award in 2020. In this post she shares a deep dive into the research techniques she learned along the way.

Katie Stewart, author of three books for younger readers, knows that goal-setting isn’t an innate ability, but a skill to be learned. In this blog post, she shares how and why teaching kids to set goals at a young age is an important step towards building confidence and resilience.   

David Allan-Petale is in the running to win a prestigious ALS Gold Medal for his debut novel Locust Summer. Awarded annually for an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year, the winner receives a gold medal from the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. David’s book, which was also shortlisted for the Australian/Vogel’s […]

Surrounded by books and authors at the gorgeous Fremantle Arts Centre, the Perth Festival’s Writers Weekend kicked off with the much anticipated ‘The Business of Being a Writer’ event. Emerging authors spent several hours hearing from industry professionals on topics from marketing tips to building your profile to business advice for those just starting out. […]

Fremantle Library has stacked their shelves with an extensive new collection of books published by local Fremantle press writers. The library in the Walyalup Civic Centre has made more than 300 titles available for loan. The Fremantle Press collection includes both fiction and non-fiction, ranging from crime and historical novels to autobiographies, art and culture […]

‘The Business of Being a Writer’ added another topic to its list of panel discussions this year: ‘In the Writers’ Room’. Moderated by Holden Sheppard, whose 2018 YA novel, Invisible Boys, is currently being adapted for television, the panel featured documentary filmmaker Victoria Midwinter-Pitt, director and screenwriter Ben Young and writer-director Maziar Lahooti. Victoria started […]

Kyle Hughes-Odgers is the creator of a new board book Everything You Want to See. The artist and father takes us through how he gets his ideas and the collaborative process of translating them onto the page. Everything You Want to See started as an idea in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic. […]

The Perth Festival Writers Weekend provided West Australian readers and writers with the opportunity to hear from a diverse range of authors, creators and professionals in the industry. I attended the Fremantle Press event ‘The Business of Being a Writer’ on a lovely Friday afternoon at the Fremantle Arts Centre. With the ever-evolving nature of […]

The Sawdust House is my third historical novel, following on from The Coves in 2018. I’m normally a crime fiction novelist, but my crime novels have an historical element too, with most of them set in 1970s and 1980s Perth and Fremantle. All of the novels require a fair bit of research, but it’s research […]

Fans of art heists, fakes and the hunt for long-lost art treasures are going to love The Gallerist, a new mystery story by Michael Levitt. In it, Mark Lewis is running a small art gallery when a local woman brings him a painting for valuing that looks uncannily like the work of the renowned but […]

Lion, is that you? by Moira Court is a gorgeous multi-layered new picture book that plays on myths about big cats stalking through the Australian bush. We asked Moira to share with us five books featuring big cats that she loved reading to her daughter. We think you’ll agree her choices, would make wonderful, purring […]

In Only Birds Above Arthur Watkins, is a blacksmith serving with the 10th Light Horse Regiment in the Middle East during World War I.  When he returns home without his horse – the companion he’s worked alongside for four years – he is a man forever changed by what he has seen and suffered. In […]

Emerging arts professional and Minderoo editor, Kirsty Horton was awarded an Honourable Mention in the 2022 IPEd Student Prize for her work; ‘BookTube and the Publishing Industry: A Study of the Commercial Relationship between YouTube Content Creators and Publicists’. Kirsty, who recently completed an MA in Professional Writing and Publishing at Curtin University, said, ‘It […]