American and women writers dominate the longlist for The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award 2018
This year’s longlist includes ten women, nine American writers and four British authors.
SoA urges HMRC to protect authors’ exemption from withholding tax
8 February 2018 The government is planning to broaden the circumstances in which certain payments – such as royalties – made to non-UK residents are liable for income tax. A consultation on the subject is running until 23 February. HMRC has commented that the legislation is primarily aimed at groups of companies rather than individual…
Audio Drama Awards 2018: The Winners
28 January 2018 This year’s Imison Award has been won by Adam Usden for his ‘strikingly compelling’ radio drama The Book of Yehudit, while Sarah Woods has scooped the Tinniswood Award for her ‘dark and original’ play Borderland. (Sarah Woods, Philip Pullman and Adam Usden at the BBC Audio Drama Awards. Image: BBC / Guy…
Diverse shortlist announced for inaugural TA First Translation Prize
17 January 2018 The judges of the inaugural TA First Translation Prize have announced a shortlist of six books by new literary translators. Among the shortlisted books are a graphic novel, four works of fiction and one non-fiction book, in translations from Arabic, French, Polish, Russian and Thai. The TA First Translation Prize was founded…
Want to get your book in bookshops?
Want to get your book stocked in a high street bookshop? is a new guide published by the Booksellers Association. Primarily aimed at independent authors, the guide also offers ideas and tips for authors published by a mainstream publisher. Sheilla O’Reilly of Village Books, Dulwich, said: With so many books published, sometimes getting books onto the…
Robin Moger wins the 2017 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize
10 January 2018 The 2017 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation has been awarded to Robin Moger for his translation of The Book of Safety by Yasser Abdel Hafez (Hoopoe Fiction). The winner will be presented with their £3,000 award at the Society of Authors Translation Prizes on 1st March at the British…
Developments on libel reform in Scotland
9 January 2018 The Scottish Law Commission (SLC) has published its Report on Defamation, which includes a draft defamation reform bill. This follows hundreds of campaigners responding to the SLC’s consultations on defamation in 2016 and on a working draft of a defamation reform bill last summer. The SoA has lobbied in favour of Scottish…
Audio Drama Awards 2018: thematically diverse Imison & Tinniswood shortlists announced
We’ve announced the shortlists for this year’s Imison Award (for best original audio drama script by a writer new to the medium) and Tinniswood Award (for best original audio drama script of the year). Topics tackled by a thematically diverse array of scripts include colonialism, Jewish divorce and a chilling vision of a near future…
We just shared £140,000 between 61 authors to support new work
22 December 2017 Established and debut authors share in this year’s second round of literary grants for works in progress. (from left: Nazneen Ahmed, Sarah K Marr, Muhammad Khan, Eli Goldstone, Sam Riviere and Wendy Moore) Over the past six months we have received more applications than ever before for our biannual round of literary…
Warning about the Internet Archive & Open Library
13 December 2017 The Internet Archive is a San Francisco–based nonprofit digital library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. It seeks donations of hard-copy books from libraries and individuals and then scans, digitises, and offers them for lending and downloading without paying royalties or PLR. According to our sister organisation…
Philip Pullman and Nicola Solomon feature in Bookseller 100
8 December 2017 This year the Bookseller has recognised contributions by our President, Philip Pullman, and our Chief Executive, Nicola Solomon. Pullman has campaigned tirelessly for authors’ rights this year, as usual, leading the charge for better school library provisions, protection of public libraries, freedom of expression and fairer approaches to deep discounts on book…
THE BOOK OF BEES wins the ALCS Educational Writing Award 2017, the UK’s only award for creative educational writing
5th December 2017 The £2,000 prize was presented at the All Party Parliamentary Writers Group (APWG) Winter Reception at the House of Commons on 5th December. The winner of the 2017 Award is THE BOOK OF BEES, written by Wojciech Grajkowski, illustrated by Piotr Socha, and translated into English from the Polish by Agnes Monod-Gayraud….