Category: News

Under the night sky and twinkling lights of the gothic Fremantle Arts Centre, some of WA’s talented authors and artists gathered to launch 19 new books and commemorate 45 years of publishing. The Great Big Book Launch, hosted by Fremantle Press, provided authors and book lovers alike with a warm, supportive place for important local […]

Cartoonist Sarah Winifred Searle helped launch Stars in Their Eyes by Jessica Walton and Aśka at Rabble Books in Maylands. Here’s what she had to say about this new graphic novel for ages 12+.

Karen Herbert took to the stand on Wednesday 6 October to discuss her debut crime novel, The River Mouth, a small-town noir where long-kept secrets are bubbling up to the surface as part of this year’s A Shot in the Dark series. Karen was quizzed by Jane Seaton of Beaufort Street Books in Perth, with […]

In which, via a series of plot twists and non sequiturs, a prose editor gets around to asking a poetry editor about how and why she does what she does. Metaphors abound.

It’s been ten years since Detective Philip ‘Cato’ Kwong was introduced to the world. He was in his thirties then; the classical piano playing, cryptic crossword solving, stubborn obsessive was badly in need of redemption in both his career and his marriage. We first met him in Prime Cut, persona non grata, exiled to Stock […]

I believe comics to be a medium with a potential to tell unique and complex stories, by taking the reader on a personal journey. Below are five of my (many) favourite books. I recommend these highly if you’d like to see the masters at work, want to understand what the graphic novel fuss is all […]

Australia has voted and the results are in for the Better Reading Top 50 Kids book list! Coming in at number 17, Invisible Boys is one of a growing number of debut Australian books identified as a favourite read.

Emerging editor Kirsty Horton is the 2021 Minderoo Editor. The Minderoo Editorship provides funding for a position at Fremantle Press for three years. The program commenced in 2018 with the aim of fostering new Western Australian publishing talent, by helping entry-level editors develop editorial and project-management skills across all genres.

Mel and Shell is set in 1979. What was going on then? For Sandgropers of a certain age, you’ll remember that 1979 was promoted as the 150th anniversary of English settlement in Western Australia. There were fetes, re-enactments (including the Parmelia Yacht Race), and every primary school child was given a diary with lots of […]

‘Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,’ said the Rat. ‘And that’s something that doesn’t matter, either to you or me. I’ve never been there, and I’m never going, nor you either, if you’ve got any sense at all. Don’t ever refer to it again, please. Now then! Here’s our backwater at last, where […]

Join us at Fremantle Arts Centre for an evening beneath the Milky Way celebrating the superstars of local literature as we launch 19 new books and commemorate 45 years of publishing. Hosted by Deb Fitzpatrick and Yuot A. Alaak, the night will feature talented local authors and artists Alex Forrest, Aśka, Cristy Burne, David Allan-Petale, […]

Setting is one of the tools in an author’s kit. Those of us who studied literature at school have all written essays on setting analysing how it contributes to mood and atmosphere, signalling what we can expect to happen in a scene. In Kate Atkinson’s book When Will There Be Good News? we know immediately […]

Fans of camembert and crime were treated to a criminally good talk when Sally Scott shared her cheese recommendations and talked about her debut cosy crime novel, Fromage, with Fiona Hardy from Readings Books in Melbourne on Wednesday 8 September.

Lawyer and debut author, Lisa Ellery, was taken to the witness stand on Wednesday 18 August to be questioned about her crime novel, Private Prosecution, by Fiona Stager from Avid Reader bookshop in Brisbane in the second A Shot in the Dark event of the year.

Congratulations to Helen Milroy, author of Backyard Bugs, Katie Stewart, author of What Colour is the Sea?  and Tracey Gibbs, author of Let’s Count Wildflowers for being shortlisted for this year’s Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards.

There’s nothing little about Kelly Canby’s light this August. With a book in the running for a Western Australian Premier’s Book Award, an adaptation of Littlelight heading to the stage and screen, and the launch of a new exhibition, the spotlight is definitely pointed in Kelly’s direction.

In his new memoir Second Innings: On Men, Mental Health and Cricket Barry Nicholls says, ‘Life is like facing an opening bowler: the pitch is unknown, the ball is new and you don’t know what will be delivered.’ He describes the book as a story about his passion for cricket and how the friendships formed […]

In early 2018, I decided to shake up my travel writing career by setting out on a huge journey by rail around Australia, from Far North Queensland to south-west Western Australia. It was a vast undertaking, involving seven long-distance trains (with an eighth as an epilogue), at various levels of comfort, along with side-trips in […]

My novel, The Night Village, begins with my shell-shocked main character, Simone, sitting in a London maternity ward holding a newborn baby and wondering exactly how she’s landed there. The next day she returns to her boyfriend Paul’s apartment and is plunged into her new life as a mother. A few weeks later, Paul’s cousin […]