Text Publishing profile: 'At Text we want to publish books that make a difference to people’s lives. We believe that reading should be a marvellous experience, that every book you read should somehow change your life if only by a fraction. We love the phrase ‘lost in a book’—that’s where we want our readers to be. You can’t get lost in a newspaper or a magazine or even a movie. But people get lost in books every day—on the tram, on the beach, in bed. Reading is what keeps the imagination supple and challenges preconceptions and prejudices. You read at your own speed, and the world you enter courtesy of the writer is yours and yours only, even if the person next to you on the bus is reading exactly the same book.
'We are committed to providing first-class services to the writers who trust us with their books. If we are to fulfil our promises to readers, our job is to do everything in our power to help our writers write the best books they can. We care passionately about the quality of our editorial work. Design and production matter to us because we want our books to be beautiful objects. And since we want our beautiful books to be read on trains and beaches, in beds and planes, or under the desk at school and work, we work up a sweat to promote and market them. And that includes selling rights on behalf of our writers to publishers all around the world. In fact we earn more money for our writers through licensing international editions than we do by turning their books into bestsellers in Australia and New Zealand.
'We publish a very broad range of fiction and non-fiction, international and local, books for adults and young adults. We are capable of falling in love with any book, and many of our authors have led us into fascinating territory we would never otherwise have discovered. Lots of our books are award-winners around the world. If you are a writer or an agent and would like to send us your manuscript we would love to consider it. If you are a reader we hope that somewhere on our list you will find the book that makes the world a different place for you.'
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In August, Text Publishing is proud to be releasing Traitor by New Zealand-born author Stephen Daisley.
Opening on the battlefields of Gallipoli, Traitor follows the story of young New Zealand soldier, David, as he is forced to confront the clash of love for his fellow man versus love for his country. Sent home in disgrace, broken and made anew, David attempts to find peace in the secluded hills of his homeland.
Evoking both brutality and transcendent beauty, Stephen Daisley's astonishing debut novel will transport the reader heart and soul into another realm.
The winner of the 2010 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children's Writing is Christchurch author Jane Higgins, for her apocalyptic action novel The Bridge.
Higgins, a research sociologist at Lincoln University, has won AU$10,000 and a publishing contract with Text Publishing. Her debut novel, The Bridge will be published in Australia and New Zealand in August 2011.
Higgins described her win as 'a tremendous thrill'.
The shortlist for the 2010 Text Prize has been announced, and it includes two novels by New Zealanders.
The number of entries was down slightly in this the third year of the prize, but the standard was even more impressive.
This year Text has shortlisted two novels by New Zealanders and three by Australians. Three of the top five manuscripts are by unpublished authors and two by authors with works already in print.
The manuscripts' themes range from the supernatural to war, an online youth newspaper to time travel - to a slug that poos diamonds.
Brad Pitt's production company, whose films include The Departed, The Time Traveler's Wife and the upcoming Eat Pray Love, has optioned rights to make a movie of acclaimed bestselling novel The Imperfectionists, a wry comic tale of journalists at a struggling international newspaper in Rome.
The book, by debut novelist Tom Rachman, drew attention from various Hollywood producers after rave reviews in newspapers across the US, including on the cover of The New York Times Book Review, the author's agent, Susan Golomb, said Wednesday.
Text Publishing congratulates Bernard Beckett on winning the Young Adult division of the 2010 Prix Sorcières in France.
Beckett’s brilliant and gripping YA novel Genesis (9781921351426, $19.95) has already been much lauded in Australia, and Text Publishing is delighted with this new success in France.
YOUNG ADULT FICTION FINALIST
The Beginner’s Guide to Living
Lia Hills
Text Publishing
ISBN 978-1-921520-07-5 pb RRP $25.00
Target age 14+
Seventeen-year-old Will is in turmoil after the sudden death of his mother. Will begins a search for the answers he craved, using his mum’s old camera to document the experience and scrambles to find an idea for which he can live and die.
This is a stunning novel about grief, ideas and experience, about those moments in your life that change you forever.
SYDNEY BRIDGE UPSIDE DOWN by David Ballantyne (9781921520020, $32.00) is set to make a huge media splash in February. Discover the novel that changed Bernard Beckett’s life and influenced a whole generation of writers.
Media includes:
Gerald Murnane has won the $60,000 Melbourne Prize for Literature.
The prize, awarded every three years, recognises a Victorian author whose body of work has made an outstanding contribution to Australian literature.
Murnane is the author of eight novels including the highly acclaimed Tamarisk Row (Giramondo Publishing) and his most enduring work, The Plains (Text Publishing). His first work of fiction in fourteen years, Barley Patch, was published last month by Giramondo.
