What's going on in the world of Aotearoa's books? Browse the latest book news and scroll the Kete calendar for book event listings.
E aha ana i te ao pukapuka o Aotearoa? Tirohia ngā kawepūrongo pukapuka hou, ā, tirohia te maramataka o Kete mō ngā taiopenga pukapuka.
You can also check out the latest events in our Kete calendar...
The Storylines Children’s Literature Charitable Trust Te Whare Waituhi Tamariki is delighted to announce poet Paula Green as the 2025 recipient of the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal, New Zealand’s most prestigious honour for children’s and young adult authors, illustrators and publishers.
New Zealand writers Kate Duignan and Rachael King have been awarded the prestigious 2025 Sargeson Fellowship.
HamLit is an exciting new series of bookish events taking place in the glorious Hamilton Gardens this coming February. A literary festival within a festival, HamLit will serve up a stimulating smorgasbord of events for readers and writers.
An exciting new initiative to showcase Aotearoa's new and emerging authors is set to launch next year.
Two highly experienced panels that include bestselling and award-winning authors, illustrators, editors, book reviewers, kaiako and librarians have been appointed to judge entries in the 2025 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.
Internationally renowned children’s author Dame Lynley Dodd, historian and environmentalist Neville Peat, and multi-talented poet Apirana Taylor are being recognised for their contributions to literature with top literary award, the 2024 Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement.
We're giving away three packs of books featured in the New Zealand Summer Reading Guide. All Kete Books newsletter subscribers are eligible. Find out more.
The New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa is delighted to announce that Charlotte Grimshaw is the NZSA 2025 President of Honour. This prestigious honour is bestowed on a senior writer and long-serving NZSA member in recognition of their contribution to writing, writers and the literary arts sector in Aotearoa.
Writers, apply now to be mentored by an established writer, poet, or playwright.
Landfall Essay Competition judge Lynley Edmeades has announced the joint winners of this year’s competition: Franchesca Walker for her essay ‘Unsteady ground’ and Hannah August for her essay ‘Response to a restructure’.
Submissions for the 2025 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults have opened.
This year's Storylines Notable Books list, representing the very best books for children and young adult published in the last twelve months, has been released.
Little Moa, the children's division of Moa Press (Hachette NZ) is open for submissions from 25 November. If you've been working on a picture book manuscript, graphic novel or middle grade chapter book read on for details.
Christchurch secondary school teacher Rebecca Ball, screenwriter Wayne Hotu and year 11 student Eassin Wang are the winners of the prestigious Sunday Star-Times Short Story Awards, sharing in a total prize pool of $20,000.
Kiwi Christmas Books donations have opened. Take a look at the article founder Sonya Wilson wrote for Kete this time last year on how donating new books at Christmas makes a real difference.
The Kupu Māori Writers Festival runs from 16 to 19 October in Rotorua and showcases the rich tapestry of Māori literature.
The current round of Mātātuhi Foundation funding closes on 31 October. Applicants can now apply for up to $20,000.
Mark Derby has been awarded the 2024 award for his project, account of the New Zealand Wars in the Bay of Plenty, with a focus on Hakaraia Mahika, the extraordinary spiritual and military leader.
Independent book shops across the motu will celebrate their pivotal roles as community hubs with fanfare events on Bookshop Day Saturday 12 October.
Expressions of interest are being invited from members and followers of the children’s literature community who would like to be considered as judges for the 2025 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adult.
Head to your local bookstore on Saturday 12 October. Bookshop Day is a celebration of the cultural importance of books and bookshops, and booksellers: the people who bring the two together.
Dr Jacqueline Leckie has been awarded the New Zealand Society of Authors Peter and Dianne Beatson Fellowship 2024 to work on her novel with the working title Meg Campbell (1937–2007): Aroha and Resistance.
Steph Matuku has been named the first recipient of the New Zealand Society of Authors Shaw Writer's Award.
Rights to internationally acclaimed New Zealand author Catherine Chidgey’s ninth novel, The Book of Guilt, have been bought by UK publishing house John Murray at a contested auction.
The 4th Floor Journal is back! After a four-year hiatus, the 4th Floor Journal, the journal edited and produced by students of the Whitireia publishing programme is being re-launched!
Māori and Pasifika designers have taken out the top honours at the 2024 PANZ Book Design Awards, held in Auckland on Thursday evening.
‘I a au e huritao nei, e whakamīharo nei ki ngā mahi kua riwha, kia whāiti noa iho te titiro ki te mātākōrero Māori (Māori literature)…’ Ka takoto i a Hēmi Kelly, i tana hau ētita motuhake kua tuhia hei whakanui i Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, ētahi kupu mō te āhua o te mātākōrero Māori.
From Saturday, and throughout Te Wiki o te Reo Māori next week, we're excited to welcome author, translator and EveryDay Māori creator Hēmi Kelly (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Tahu-Ngāti Whaoa) as our guest editor.
Award-winning writers, journalists, reviewers, respected academics, curators and booksellers are among the 12 experts selected to judge the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
Michael King Writers Centre welcomes 17 writers to the centre to undertake residencies for 2025.
The Kaipukahu University of Waikato Writer in Residence for 2025 is open for applications until 25 October.
Whowunnit? A trio of Kiwi writers were honoured at WORD Christchurch Festival as they scooped the 2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards.
Herb MacDonald's illustrations for the Margaret Mahy classic, The Great White Man Eating Shark, have won the 2024 Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize.
Friday 23 August is Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day. With it comes all manner of opportunities to unleash your inner poet, experience the power of poetry and take poetry into the weekend.
The 2024 Copyright Licensing New Zealand (CLNZ) and New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa PEN NZ Inc (NZSA) Research Grants have been awarded to four writers in Aotearoa.
The Sunday-Star Times Short Story Awards has opened for 2024 with its largest total prize pool.
Celebrate Janet Frame's 100th birthday, take your Dad to brunch with Matt Heath for Father's Day, embark on a bookish olfactory experience, enjoy a few bad diary entries, and much, much more at WORD Christchurch Festival next week.
Crisp air and lit conversation! From Ōtautahi to Auckland, from Bay of Islands to the Waikato, the festival forecast for the next few months is looking sublime.
The finalist titles for Best Novel, Best First Novel and Best Children's or Young Adult Book, in this year’s Ngaio Marsh Awards have been announced.
Bestselling author Stacy Gregg has won the prestigious Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award at this year's New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.
Submissions for the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards are now open.
Books that stood out to booksellers, the year’s bestselling New Zealand book, audiobook of the year, and the bookshops and publisher of the year were named at the Aotearoa New Zealand Book Industry Awards.
A film which holds the camera up to the life and writing work of Aotearoa literary luminary Dame Fiona Kidman screens at the New Zealand International Film Festival this month.
Phantom Billstickers National Poetry Day 2024 is scheduled for Friday 23 August and close to 100 official events are set to showcase the nation's love of poetry.
Mātātuhi Foundation has announced that applicants for the Foundation's grants can now apply for up to $20,000 in funding in their October funding round.
From 8-15 September Upsurge Festival is set to infuse the Bay of Islands with a vibrant array of performances and activities.
The most beautifully designed books in Aotearoa have been revealed with the announcement of the 2024 PANZ Book Design Awards finalists.
Homegrown talent is more prevalent than ever in this year’s Whitcoulls Top 100 Books list, with fourteen local authors voted onto the list by Kiwi readers.
Jeffrey Buchanan has been named the winner of the 2024 Michael Gifkins Prize for his manuscript The Birds Began to Sing
This year's Ngaio Marsh Awards longlist has been announced.
Bust school holiday boredom: get great reading ideas and awesome book-inspired activities from the 2024 Finalist Activity Booklet.
The WORD Christchurch Festival programme has been announced! Get ready for a dazzling array of words and performance in Ōtautahi Christchurch this August.
Congratulations to the winner of our competition celebrating our new look website!
Welcome to Kete Books' new home! We’re excited to be here. It’s been a big renovation, a few things look quite different so we’ve put together a user guide, especially for those who were familiar with the old furniture.
In May, Kaitakawaenga Maatakiwi Wakefield and Pou Kohikohinga (Māori Collections Specialist) Ngapiu Tainui Maclure, Māori Services at Christchurch City Libraries, added an additional star to their cluster of Matariki activities: leading the books selection for Kete Books’ Winter Reading 2024 catalogue.
28 of the very best from Aotearoa! Take a look at the 2024 finalists for the New Zealand Children’s Book Awards for Children and Young Adults!
New Zealander Pip Robertson’s story ‘A River, Then the Road’, the story of a 12-year-old girl abducted by her troubled father, has won the regional Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the Pacific.
Have you ever wondered what happens ‘behind the scenes’ of the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards?
The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards were announced at a ceremony at Auckland’s Aotea Centre last night. Take a look at the list of winners here.
What are you looking forward to at the Auckland Writers Festival? We interviewed seven festival authors from Aotearoa on their sessions and the sessions that they’re most looking forward to. Read what they had to say!
We’re delighted to announce that writer, reviewer and WORD Festival Programme Director Kiran Dass is set to join Kete as Editor in Chief in September. We’re also excited to announce that writer and reviewer Erica Stretton, fresh from running National Poetry Day, has taken on Kete’s interim editorship.
Māori owned, independent publisher HUIA was named the Children’s Publisher of the Year for Oceania at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair this week. The award is in recognition of a publisher whose books stand out for their creativity, innovation and the quality of their editorial choices.
The 2024 Storylines Margaret Mahy National Awards Day was held on Sunday and included the presentation of the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal to Elizabeth Jones and the announcement of the winners of the 2024 Storylines manuscript and illustration awards.
Mark your calendars! This year’s nationwide celebration of poetry is scheduled for Friday 23 August. Registrations and seed funding applications are now open, and event organisers across the motu are encouraged to get involved!
Not-for-profit organisation Copyright Licensing New Zealand is launching MyCreativeRights, a new platform to help Aotearoa New Zealand's creatives better manage their intellectual property.
Books Alive – the programme of large-scale events that bring hundreds of kids at a time in touch with finalist authors in the annual New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults (NZCYA) – will expand to a third regional centre in 2024, thanks to funding from literature sector supporter, the Mātātuhi Foundation.
The 2024 Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize is open and this year local illustrators are invited to bring The Great Man-Eating Shark to life with colour, adventure and humour.
The NZ Booklovers Award winners were announced today. Books by Nick Davies, Eileen Merriman, David Hill, Sacha Cotter, Carlos Lehnebach, Claire Regnault, Rebecca Rice, Isaac Te Awa and Rachel Yates were named winners of the 2024 awards.
Take a look at the brilliant books in this year’s Māori Books | Ngā Pukapuka Māori and Pasifika Books catalogues. These two catalogues bring together an exciting range of recent and forthcoming Māori and Pasifika Books.
While we can’t do justice to the incredible programme of writers at this year’s Auckland Writers Festival in one short article, we’ve rolled up our sleeves and had a go. Here’s a small sample of the local talent involved in the discussions and dialogue at this year’s festival.
The 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards shortlist is out!
Falling leaves and lit conversation! From Hawkes Bay to Taranaki, from Auckland to Featherston to Wānaka, the festival forecast for the next few months is looking glorious.
A tono for kaituhi Māori across the motu: apply to be mentored by an established and acclaimed Māori writer!
Dunedin City of Literature is helping raise the profile of local writers by connecting with other UNESCO Cities of Literature and their projects including Jakarta and Leeuwarden .
The NZ Booklovers Awards 2024 shortlist was announced today!
For Auckland Pride Month and in her last year as samesame but different festival Chair, Simie Simpson celebrates the excellence of Aotearoa’s LGBTQIA writers with a must-read book list.
Bestselling and critically acclaimed works of fiction, illuminating poetry collections, absorbing memoirs, and books that explore our whenua, flora and fauna feature alongside those that celebrate our culinary and artistic heroes and heroines in the 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards longlists announced today.
Two books by Catherine Chidgey have been nominated for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award – the world’s most valuable annual prize for a work of fiction published in English.
Readers and the Aotearoa book sector are sharing memories of award-winning children’s author Sherryl Jordan who has died aged 74.
For the first time in 21 year history of the Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement, all three awards have been made to women writers.
The judges have been announced for the 2024 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.
Writer and Kiwi Christmas Books founder Sonya Wilson on how donating new books at Christmas makes a real difference.
‘…compiling and adding to this list has expanded the possibilities of my own reading, and I hope it can do the same for you.’ Saraid de Silva curates a selection of recent books by Aotearoa’s South Asian writers in this special guest editorial timed for the lead up to Diwali.
Take a look at the 2023 Storylines Notable Books (announced today)! 43 incredible books for tamariki across non-fiction; picture books; books in te reo Māori; junior fiction and YA — which means you’ll find a book for every young reader in this list!
Check out BookHub — the fast, easy way to search and buy books from Aotearoa bookshops, online!
Kiwi Christmas Books is once again collecting donations of brand new Kiwi books to gift to families who can’t afford to buy Christmas presents for their kids, or who struggle to access good books in general. Here’s how you can help.
Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival organisers are recommending festival goers vote first on the weekend of the festival (13 to 15 October) before settling in for a weekend of Aotearoa literary brilliance.
Book feasts, bookshop hops, a book ballot, readings, giveaways and this glorious books-are-my-bag tote … that’s right NZ Bookshop Day is happening this Saturday 7 October.
A ‘taut, superbly plotted crime novel with a complex protagonist … and shocking ending’ has won the Allen & Unwin Fiction Prize.
‘In my travels accompanying Sir Tīmoti and the wider touring party I have often reflected on what a fantasy it seemed like traveling around the world, not only to promote my own native language but to encourage others to do the same too, because our language, the Māori language is so revered and respected by others outside of Aotearoa-New Zealand.’ In a special editorial, written for Kete this Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, Ruth Smith focuses on the growth of te reo Māori around the world.
Kia kaha te reo Māori. This week we welcome back Ruth Smith (Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki, Ngāti Porou, Rongowhakaata, Ngāti Kahungunu) as guest editor and look forward to publishing the Kete homepage, reviews and newsletter in te reo Māori.
Ka whakanui a Kete i te reo Māori — Kete celebrates te reo Māori.
The Whanganui Literary Festival turns ten this year! Take a look at the line up of incredible local authors and writers from all around the motu.
Hachette Aotearoa has announced the talented illustrators shortlisted for this year’s Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize!
The 2023 New Zealand Books Awards for Children and Young Adults have been awarded tonight! For the first time ever, the prestigious Margaret Mahy Award has gone to a bilingual book, Te Wehenga. Congratulations to author and illustrator Mat Tait and to the authors, illustrators and publishers behind all tonight’s winning books.
Crime Time TV: The Ngaio Marsh Awards finalists for Best Non-Fiction, First Novel, and Best Novel have been named in a video released by the awards. Take a look.
Overwhelmed by the incredible line-up for WORD and not sure where to start? Good news — the festival’s Executive Director Steph Walker has you covered. Here are five unmissable events!
Outstanding booksellers and publishers in Aotearoa’s vibrant book industry have been named … along with the biggest selling book of the publishing year.
The 2023 PANZ Book Design Awards shortlist was announced on Tuesday. Readers, bibliophiles, and design and art enthusiasts alike will find a huge amount to admire about this shortlist. Take a look.
If you’re in or around Tāmaki Makaurau, take a look at the lineup for Auckland Council Libraries’ annual festival celebrating the city’s writers and readers. As well as author talks, this year’s festival features The Bestie collection — ten bestselling books by Auckland authors.
Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2023 winners announced!
Kete and Storylines are launching a new monthly bestseller list to help showcase and promote the excellent junior and young adult fiction books written and published in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand and the Margaret Mahy Estate are excited to announce the return of the Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize for its fifth year.
17 February: NZ Booklovers Awards 2023 Shortlist announced
It’s here - 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Longlist announced
The Whitcoulls Kids’ Top 50 Books List is out - have more books from Aotearoa New Zealand made the cut?
The long list for the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction includes two New Zealand writers, Catherine Chidgey and Meg Mason
Author: Renata Hopkins. Numerous four-letter words were, no doubt, on high rotate in the lead-up to this year’s WORD Christchurch Festival launch — and only one of them would have been ‘word’. But despite the Covid odds the festival team once again delivered an ambitious and innovative programme that ranged from politics to poetry, and often delivered both at once.
Two Te Papa Press books win prestigious Whitley Awards for zoological literature
THE BEST TE REO MĀORI BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS FOR 2021
Historian Dr Monty Soutar, ONZM (Ngati Porou, Ngati Awa, Ngai Tai ki Tamaki, Ngati Kahungunu) has been awarded the prestigious Creative New Zealand Michael King Writer’s Fellowship.
8 October 2020: Yarns in Barns in the Wairarapa starts today
9 September 2020. WORD Christchurch announces programme for Spring Festival 28 October-1 November
4 August 2020. The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards judges for 2021 are announced as submissions open
‘As I reflect and admire the work that has been done, I want to focus on Māori literature…’ In his editorial for Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, Hēmi Kelly discusses the legacy of Māori literature.