diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 4973d12..19daabf 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,3 +1,16 @@
+Overview of changes leading to 1.6.1
+Sunday, October 22nd, 2017
+====================================
+
+- Don't skip over COMBINING GRAPHEME JOINER when ligating, etc.
+  To be refined: https://github.com/behdad/harfbuzz/issues/554
+- Faster hb_set_t implementation.
+- Don't use deprecated ICU API.
+- Fix undefined-behavior in Myanmar shaper, introduced in 1.6.0
+- Deprecated API:
+  hb_set_invert()
+
+
 Overview of changes leading to 1.6.0
 Friday, October the 13th, 2017
 ====================================
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index ba09392..1e00e3d 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 AC_PREREQ([2.64])
 AC_INIT([HarfBuzz],
-        [1.6.0],
+        [1.6.1],
         [https://github.com/behdad/harfbuzz/issues/new],
         [harfbuzz],
         [http://harfbuzz.org/])