Copyright Agency Board appointment

Copyright Agency Chair Dr Kate Harrison welcomes Sophie Cunningham to the Board. The appointment was announced at the Annual General Meeting on Monday, 21 November 2022.

Ms Cunningham was nominated by the Australian Society of Authors (ASA) and joins the board as one of two ASA nominee directors. She takes the place of outgoing author director Anne Maria Nicholson, who has served on the Board since November 2019.

Dr Harrison says, “I’m delighted to welcome Sophie to the Copyright Agency. Her significant service to Australia’s literature landscape is renowned, having received a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2019 Queen’s Birthday Honours. Working for more than 30 years across all disciplines of the Australian publishing sector as an author of four books, a former editor of Meanjin, a founding member of the Stella Prize and the current Chair of the Literature Strategy Panel of the Australia Council, Sophie brings a unique level of experience and knowledge that will be invaluable to the Board.”

Dr Harrison thanked Anne Maria Nicholson for her tremendous and dedicated service to the Board and acknowledged the recent appointment of Professor Matthew Ricketson as the other serving Author Member on the Board.

“Copyright Agency is now entering an exciting period. After establishing new systems that reflect the digital era, we are looking forward to working constructively with our customers and Members to facilitate broad access to content on fair terms that support the sustainability of Australia’s creative industries,  and continue to foster the interests of Australian creators as they inspire the next generation of Australians,” adds Dr Harrison.

This Devastating Fever

This Devastating Fever will be published in September 2022.

A novel some 16 years in the making, the spark for This Devastating Fever came when Sophie Cunningham first read Leonard Woolf’s work in 2004. Struck by the atmosphere his writing evoked of an England lunging towards the first world war, Cunningham found herself reminded of the tension in the West after 9/11.

Woolf’s prescience continued over the decades, across the collapse of empire and two world wars. As her fascination with him grew, Cunningham pursued resonances, both personal and global, between the early years of the 1900s and the early years of the 2000s.

Mirroring Cunningham’s own writing journey, a modern-day author, Alice Fox, attempts to write a novel about Leonard Woolf but often finds herself derailed by the distractions of modern living. Through Fox’s at times hapless journey, Cunningham encourages the reader to examine deeper questions about colonial history, racism and what it is like to live through wars, plagues and natural disasters as well as the complexities of what it means to live a full, loving and creative life.

Deeply wry and stunningly original, This Devastating Fever is an observation of what sustains humanity–love, art, nature and history–as well as a reminder of the continual relationship between our past, our present and our future.

First readers

“It takes a phenomenal control of craft, and a keenly honed intelligence, to do what Cunningham has done with this novel: to interrogate politics and art and culture, to take on love and sex and suffering and loyalty, while all the while ensuring that the reader remains buoyant and captivated by narratives that leap across space and time ... I loved this book. I absolutely loved it.” – Christos Tsiolkas (author of The Slap and 7 1⁄2)

“This Devastating Fever is both timely and timeless, a sophisticated work of fiction that addresses the anxieties of the present moment as well as the most profound questions of history, art, love and loss. A magnificent novel." – Emily Bitto (author of The Strays and Wild Abandon)

“This Devastating Fever is remarkable: a thrillingly original, deeply emotional exploration of the complex echoes of history set in the shadow of the looming catastrophe of the future. Sinuous, strange, utterly compelling, it is like no other book you’ll read this year.” – James Bradley (author of Ghost Species and The Resurrectionist)

“This Devastating Fever is thrillingly audacious fiction. Sophie Cunningham’s entwined subjects are profound – Leonard Woolf and colonialism, the crises of the present day, the challenges of creative work – and she writes commandingly and inventively about them all. The result is an extraordinary novel.” – Michelle de Kretser (author of Questions of Travel and Scary Monsters)

Book deal with Ultimo Press

Ultimo Press has acquired world rights to a new novel by Sophie Cunningham in a two-book deal brokered by Jane Novak at Jane Novak Literary Agency.

Cunningham’s first novel in 15 years, This Devastating Fever ‘explores how hard people fight to live creative lives even when they find themselves at the outset of war, or living through a pandemic, caught up in bushfires, or political turmoil. At its core, however, it is a novel about persistence and love—the mysterious, the beautiful, the strange threads that connect people.’

‘I’m so pleased, and proud, that This Devastating Fever – my novel about turmoil, art and the complex ways in which people choose to love – has been finished and is to be published,’ said Cunningham. ‘The project has been close to my heart for many years. And I love that a novel that includes the founders of Hogarth Press, Virginia and Leonard Woolf, should be published by a small independent publishing house. I couldn’t be more excited to be working with the team at Ultimo Press.’

Melbourne-based Cunningham is the author of seven books including the novels Geography and Bird (both Text). A former publisher and editor, she is now an adjunct professor at RMIT University’s Non/fiction Lab. In 2019 Cunningham was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her contributions to literature.

Ultimo commissioning editor Brigid Mullane said: ‘I am so honoured that my first fiction acquisition for Ultimo is from the literary powerhouse Sophie Cunningham. This Devastating Fever is lyrical, fierce and funny—and it is beyond a privilege to bring it to the world.’

This Devastating Fever will be published in September 2022 with the second book to follow in 2024.