An Irish author has, by dint of sheer chutzpah, managed a way to be nominated for a literary award before his book has been published. Two weekends ago, Julian Gough posted a plea for help on his website under the title, ‘Help save civilisation by reading a funny book’. Gough asked readers to read and review his forthcoming comic novel Jude in London for…

It’s unusual for a new collection of poems to have an introduction. They often appear in a collected or selected poems, serving to frame a writer’s life and work; but I don’t recall seeing an introduction to an individual collection before John Mateer’s Southern Barbarians. The usual convention is that, aside from the obligatory blurbs, a single collection will autonomously speak for itself…

Two first-time novelists - Jon Bauer and Kirsten Tranter - are among the eight writers long-listed for this year’s Miles Franklin prize. Kim Scott’s nomination follows on from his regional Commonwealth Prize win and Chris Womersley’s Bereft comes on top of his Indie Awards win earlier this week. The prize is one of the country’s most venerable and prestigious literary awards.

The long list…

Publishing group The Thousands is running an online program “that recognises and rewards local achievements”. Nominees for the Thousands Awards have been published, and though the nominees for the ‘Read’ category are all worthy of the $1000 prize, readers can vote for their favourite. The nominees are literary journal The Lifted Brow, independent publishers Small House Books and Rainoff Books, spoken word event…