diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 321c55018..a05ff67cf 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,3 +1,12 @@
+Overview of changes leading to 2.8.1
+Tuesday, May 4, 2021
+====================================
+- Subsetter now fully supports GSUB/GPOS/GDEF tables (including variations); as
+  such, layout tables are retained by subsetter by default. (Garret Rieger, Qunxin Liu)
+- Build scripts no longer check for FontConfig as HarfBuzz does not use it.
+- hb-view supports iTerm2 and kitty inline image protocols (Khaled Hosny),
+  it can also use Chafa for terminal graphics if available (Hans Petter Jansson).
+
 Overview of changes leading to 2.8.0
 Tuesday, March 16, 2021
 ====================================
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 0406690c2..043f6ed61 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 AC_PREREQ([2.64])
 AC_INIT([HarfBuzz],
-        [2.8.0],
+        [2.8.1],
         [https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz/issues/new],
         [harfbuzz],
         [http://harfbuzz.org/])
diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index b20bed51d..4d5cd0ca5 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 project('harfbuzz', 'c', 'cpp',
   meson_version: '>= 0.47.0',
-  version: '2.8.0',
+  version: '2.8.1',
   default_options: [
     'cpp_eh=none',          # Just to support msvc, we are passing -fno-rtti also anyway
     'cpp_rtti=false',       # Just to support msvc, we are passing -fno-exceptions also anyway
diff --git a/src/hb-version.h b/src/hb-version.h
index 6db58c3f7..3c33bd4fe 100644
--- a/src/hb-version.h
+++ b/src/hb-version.h
@@ -53,14 +53,14 @@ HB_BEGIN_DECLS
  *
  * The micro component of the library version available at compile-time.
  */
-#define HB_VERSION_MICRO 0
+#define HB_VERSION_MICRO 1
 
 /**
  * HB_VERSION_STRING:
  *
  * A string literal containing the library version available at compile-time.
  */
-#define HB_VERSION_STRING "2.8.0"
+#define HB_VERSION_STRING "2.8.1"
 
 /**
  * HB_VERSION_ATLEAST: