Chicken House partners with Chinese-based Liaoning Publishing Group

Chicken House has signed an “exclusive deal” with one of China’s largest publishing houses, Liaoning Publishing Group, which will publish all the forthcoming prize-winners of the Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition. Liaoning is also launching a similar competition for new writers in China.

The deal was brokered by Elinor Bagenal, rights director of Scholastic-owned Chicken House, and Andrew Nurnberg Associates in China.

Dick Robinson, Scholastic’s global Chairman, president and c.e.o, was the “guest of honour” as chairman of the board of Liaoning Publishing Group, Mr Jianyun Yang, signed the deal with Chicken House publisher Barry Cunningham at the Bologna Book Fair last week. Zheng Guoji, Liaoning’s editor-in-chief, also attended and said he looked forward to working with Chicken House on other new titles in addition to the competition winners.

Cunningham said: “I am pleased to see that Chicken House’s innovative programme of discovering fresh talent is finding a home across the world. We’re thrilled to introduce new writing to Chinese readers with the help of one of the largest and most prestigious Chinese publishing houses – I hope one day to publish great new writing from China, too.”

The Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition is for unpublished writers and is now in its 10th year. The publisher received more than 1,000 entries in the competition’s “most successful year” in 2016, according to Cunningham. Last year's winner was Nicki Thornton, the co-founder of independent bookshop Mostly Books. The longlist for this year's award is due to be revealed in the next month.