Festival News

M Festival – Nanteuil, celebrating books, ideas and music makes its debut 24-26 July 2026 in the villages on Nanteuil en Vallée, Charente, France. Amongst the impressive list of speakers are Tash Aw, Amy Tan, Alan Hollinghurst and Aube Rey Lescure

A new partnership with the Carnegies will see 2026 award winners Beth O’Brien and Kate Rolfe appear at the Gibunco Gibraltar Literary Festival this November. The festival is currently releasing its programme, with 24 authors already announced and more to come.

Two of the world’s top festivals are recruiting for plum roles. 

Sydney Writers’ Festival is looking for an Artistic Director. Information on the role is attached – interested candidates should contact Tony Grierson at AEGEUS Executive Search for further information: swf@aegeus.asia | +61 (2) 9053 8866. The deadline for applications is 3 July.

Hay Festival is looking for a new Creative Director. Find out more here

The deadline for applications is 8 July.

Industry News

BookBrunch reports that Bath Literature Festival (UK), which ran from 16 -24 May, is facing financial difficulties and many of the authors and speakers are yet to be paid. Bath Literature Festival is part of the Bath Festivals charity, which was founded in 1948. Authors who appeared this year include Maggie O’Farrell, Douglas Stuart, Ben Miller, Katy Hessel, Samira Ahmed, and historian Tom Holland.

Sarah Wynn-Williams sues Meta over its attempts to silence her, reports The Guardian

The Orwell Prizewinners have been announced. Karen Bartlett’s account of Afghan women judges under Taliban rule wins the Orwell Prize for Political Writing; Ben Lerner’s exploration of misinformation in the digital age wins the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction

Hong Kong bookseller arrested in new phase of crackdown on dissent, reports The Times

In the UK, the winners of this year’s Carnegie Medal for Writing, Carnegie Medal for Illustration and Shadowers’ Choice Medals have been announced. Beth O’Brien won both the Carnegie Medal for Writing and the Shadowers’ Choice Medal for Writing for her feminist reimagining of Red Riding Hood, Wolf Siren. Kate Rolfe won the Carnegie Medal for Illustration for Wiggling Words, described as a “deeply personal yet universal” exploration that offers insight into what reading is like for people with dyslexia.

The London Book Fair announced today that its 2027 event will collaborate with this Japanese Book Publishers Association (JBPA) to feature the Japanese book business as part of its Market Focus program, Publishers Weeklywrites.

The A.I. voice generation platform ElevenLabs has created a new audiobook edition of the Odyssey using the voice of the actor Michael Caine, according to the New York Times.

Ann Patchett has been named the winner of the 2026 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. The annual prize honors an American writer whose “body of work is distinguished by its mastery of the art, as well as its originality of thought and imagination.” Patchett is the author of ten novels, most recently Whistler (Harper, 2026), as well as nonfiction and children’s books.

The e-book platform Rakuten Kobo had to reject 45 percent of the titles submitted to its platform last year because so many were AI-generated books, according to the Bookseller.

The literary magazine Granta has announced that it will no longer participate in “external publishing partnerships” where it doesn’t have editorial oversight, according to the Guardian. This decision was made following controversy surrounding this year’s Commonwealth short story prize, one of whose winners was widely accused of having used AI after his story was published in the magazine. “We will keep the Commonwealth prize shortlisted stories on our website in the public interest, and wish our former partner, the Commonwealth Foundation, all the best in its work,” Granta said in a statement.

The Commonwealth Foundation asked the writers to provide drafts, story outlines, manuscripts and other evidence of their creative process when investigating the allegations of AI use, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, director-general Razmi Farook has told The Bookseller. In an exclusive interview following the Foundation’s review, which concluded it was “satisfied” no AI had been used to write the winning stories, Farook said the organisation undertook a detailed examination of the writers’ creative process rather than relying on AI-detection software.

Pope Leo XIV to publish collection of early writings. Freedom Under Grace will feature previously unpublished homilies and addresses from 2001 to 2013, letting readers ‘observe the development of Prevost’s thinking’

At 80, SF author M John Harrison is producing some of his best work. He talks about finding his voice, alien intelligence and the advice from Iain Banks that still spurs him on. Read The Guardian´s interview. 

Clarke Gayford’s essay for The Guardian: Writers’ festivals are the new raves – and as a born-again book reader I couldn’t be happier about the upsurge in collectivism.

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