Independent Publishing Conference 2022

Richard Jean So is associate professor of English and data science at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He teaches and researches computational and data-driven approaches to literature, culture and digital media. His most recent book is Redlining Culture: A Data History of Racial Inequality and Postwar Fiction (Columbia UP, 2020). More recently, he has turned to […]

Dr Jan Zwar is Faculty Research Manager in the Macquarie Business School and a co-researcher on projects with Professor David Throsby and Dr Paul Crosby, Department of Economics, examining changes in Australia’s book industry. Her current research with Prof Throsby and Dr Crosby is a 2022 survey of Australian book authors, funded by the Australia Council […]

Julienne van Loon is an Associate Professor in Creative Writing and co-director of the non/fictionLab research group at RMIT University. Her contributions to Australian literature (four books, and scores of shorter works) engage deeply with the ethical imagination and raise important questions of politics and power affecting women’s participation in contemporary culture. Julienne is series editor for Bloomsbury […]

Dr Bronwyn Coate is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing at RMIT. She is a cultural economist whose research interests include valuing the arts and culture, artistic and cultural production including implications for artists’ careers and cultural labour. She is a is a co-founder of the Cultural Value Impact Network (CVIN) […]

Millicent Weber is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics at the Australian National University. She is one-third of the Public Value of the Local Book team, together with Associate Professor Julienne van Loon (University of Melbourne) and Dr Bronwyn Coate (RMIT University). Millicent researches how people engage with books, with […]

EE Lawrence (he/him) works on issues arising at the intersection of library & information ethics, readers and reading, and aesthetics (especially as these pertain to leisure-time recommendation practices and structural inequities in print culture). His current research centres on aesthetic injustice and how information practitioners are called on to respond to it in their work […]

Ellen Forget is a PhD student at University of Toronto in the Faculty of Information and the Book History and Print Culture program. They are a graduate of the Master of Publishing and Editing Certificate programs at Simon Fraser University and they work as a freelance editor. Ellen’s research interests include braille, accessible book formats, […]

Lauren Connell (she/her) is an emerging editor and student of RMIT University’s Master of Writing and Publishing. She lives on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country in the Macedon Ranges and currently works in an administrative capacity at Oxford University Press. In her spare time, she enjoys reading Helen Garner’s diaries and serenading her cat. 

Angela Meyer is an award-winning Australian writer, editor, and lecturer in the Master of Writing and Publishing at RMIT. Her debut novel, A Superior Spectre, was shortlisted for an Aurealis Award, the MUD Literary Prize, an Australian Book Industry Award, the Readings Prize for New Australian Writing and a Saltire Literary Society Award (Scotland). She is […]

Hollen Singleton is a writer, co-editor of Going Down Swinging, tutor at University of Melbourne and a PhD candidate at RMIT. Their research involves hybrid novels.

Beth is an Associate Professor of Publishing and Communication, University of Melbourne and Claire is a Professor of Publishing Studies, University of Stirling. They are the co-authors of The Frankfurt Book Fair and Bestseller Business (CUP, 2020) and co-edited the ‘Book Commerce Book Carnival’ special issue of Mémoires du Livres/Studies in Book Culture (2020). They have co-authored articles on […]

Kim Wilkins is a recognised expert on creative practice, popular literature and the publishing industry. She is the author of more than 30 full-length works of fiction, and her work is translated into more than 20 languages globally. Her scholarly research centres on creative communities, such as writing groups and fan cultures. She is most […]

Author of The Asking Game (2007) and The Art of Navigation (2017), Rose Michael lectures in writing and publishing at RMIT. She has published speculative fiction in Island, Griffith Review, Best Australian Stories, Meanjin, and speculative criticism in The Conversation, TEXT, Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, Sydney Review of Books, as well as […]

Penni Russon is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of a number of books for children and teenagers, including Only Ever Always (Delacorte Press), The Endsister (Allen & Unwin) and the Undine trilogy (Greenwillow Books). She’s a senior lecturer in writing at Monash University.

Rebecca Johinke’s work is wide ranging and interdisciplinary, but it is based in Australian literary and film studies with a strong focus on gender and popular culture. She has published many articles and chapters on Ozploitation films and on magazines. Her interests also include life writing (memoir and autofiction) and creative nonfiction. Another major interest […]

Mirren is a recent Honours graduate in Literary Studies from Monash University and majored in Indonesian language, literary studies and music composition. She has spent much of her time this year pursuing independent research in the realms of publishing studies, digital humanities and literary sociology; and recently presented at the Electronic Literature Organisation 2022 conference (ELO22) […]

Dr Lara Cain Gray is a specialist librarian with expertise in picture book translation, visual literacy and reading cultures. Her professional past spans roles in library and museum curatorship, academic teaching and research, and corporate and creative writing and editing. At present, she draws on her deep experience of international librarianship to deliver multilingual books and educational […]

Iryna is a Ukrainian-born, early-career researcher at RMIT exploring the interconnectedness of literary translation and immigrant identity through creative practice. Her translation work and reflections can be found in the most recently issue of The AALITRA review and her blog: TRANSLATION & SLAVIC.

Brigid Magner is Associate Professor in Literary Studies and co-leader of the non/fictionLab research group at RMIT University. She is the author of Locating Australian Literary Memory (Anthem Press, 2019) and edits the Journal of Australian Studies (with Emily Potter).

Emily is a PhD candidate in contemporary book culture at the University of Queensland. Her thesis examines how Australians interact with books beyond reading and includes interviews with booksellers and an Australian-wide survey about how people interact with their home bookshelves.

Tracy O’Shaughnessy is currently Program Manager of RMIT’s Master of Writing and Publishing and publisher of the Bowen Street Press. In 2016, she established RMIT’s Bowen Street Press, a student-led publishing house that forms the backbone of the Master of Writing and Publishing. Tracy brings over 25 years’ experience as a trade publisher to these roles. […]

Dr Sybil Nolan is a senior lecturer in publishing and communications at the University of Melbourne. With Dr Wonsun Shin, she leads the research project ‘Australian Children’s Mediascapes during the COVID-19 Pandemic’, in the Media and Communications program there. Sybil entered the publishing industry in 2003 as a commissioning editor at MUP and later worked […]

Alice Grundy is a PhD candidate at ANU researching Australian editing and publishing history. For the past fifteen years she has worked in Australian trade publishing and currently is a freelance editor. Her minigraph, Editing Fiction: Three case studies from post-war Australia was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022 and her reviews, articles and essays have appeared in […]

Kate Stuart is a PhD candidate from Bangor University, Wales. Her practice-based research explores author identity and online book culture through the creation, publication and promotion of an ‘unstable’ e-book, which evolves over time through changing perspective characters. Kate’s other research interests similarly involve the evolution of story or storytelling, through adaptation, folklore and fantasy. 

Missy Burrell is a writer and content director with a background in journalism and media. In 2022, she completed her Master of Writing, Editing and Publishing from the University of Queensland, with a Dean’s Commendation for Academic Excellence. Her creative nonfiction piece, ‘The Magician’s Profonde’, was published in the Crackle Anthology of Creative Writing (Corella Press). She is […]

Award-winning poet and novelist Allen C. Jones has an MFA in poetry and a PhD in Fiction and presently serves as associate professor of literature at the University of Stavanger in Norway. His scholarly work deals with experimental writing and the pedagogical uses of literary games. His novel Her Death Was Also Water is out now with […]

Camilla Holm Soelseth is a PhD Candidate in Library and Information Science at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. She is researching the phenomenon of instapoetry from a media ecological perspective. Her research interests are everything at the intersection of literary studies and social media. 

Maciej Liguzinski is a PhD Candidate in Library and Information Science at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. In his doctoral thesis, he analyses e-lending models for digital audiobooks at public libraries in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. His research interests include digital books, library studies, cultural policy research and sociology of literature. 

Terje Colbjørnsen is an Associate Professor in Library and Information Science at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. A media scholar by training (PhD), he has published on digitalisation of the book industry, streaming services and media/cultural policy. 

Laetitia Nanquette is an Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, in the School of the Arts and Media. She holds a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. She was trained in France, the United Kingdom, Iran and the United States, before coming to Australia. Laetitia works on modern […]

Elaine Jing Zhao is Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of Media Futures Hub in the School of the Arts and Media at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Elaine’s research focuses on cultural production, industry transformations and governance challenges in the platform economy. She is the author of Digital China’s Informal Circuits: Platforms, Labour and Governance (Routledge, 2019) […]

Omid Azadibougar is Professor of Comparative Literature and Translation at Hunan Normal University, China. He holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Leuven, Belgium. Before moving to Hunan Normal University, he was an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Shiraz University (2016–19), a Research Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the University […]

Anthony Y.H. Fung is Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Professor in the School of Art and Communication at Beijing Normal University at Beijing. His research interests and teaching focus on popular culture and cultural studies, popular music, gender and youth identity, cultural industries and policy, […]

 Claire (she/her) began working in the book world in 2006 at Borders, and has held various roles within the industry since then including Children’s Buyer for Dymocks George St and Book Category Buyer for Berkelouw/BOOKFACE. She joined the Nielsen BookDatateam in January 2020 as Senior Account Executive: Publishers and became an Account Manager in 2022. […]

Michael Webster has chaired Copyright Agency Limited, the Small Press Network (SPN) and the Melbourne Writers Festival. He established Bookscan in Australia, has published for large and small publishers, and has been on the board and committees of the Literature Board of the Australia Council, the Australian Publishers Association (APA), Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) and the […]

Peter Donoughue spent 35 years in book publishing including six years at McGraw-Hill in Sydney before becoming President of McGraw-Hill Japan in Tokyo in 1980. He moved to John Wiley in Brisbane and was Managing Director for 16 years until 2008. President of the APA for two years in 1996, and a Director of CAL for 12 […]

Eleanor Curtain has published literacy materials for primary school students in Australia, USA, Canada, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, South Africa, UAE, Ireland and the UK. Eleanor Curtain Publishing has translated its reading programs into Spanish, French, Gaelic and several South African languages. It produces Standard English, American English and Canadian English versions […]

Jackie Yowell’s publishing career started with Longman Green Kenya in 1968. In 1970 she came to Longman in Australia, subsequently working as editor or publisher for conglomerates and independents, including a decade each with Penguin and Allen & Unwin, and briefly, with her own imprint – Silver Gum Press. Qualified in anthropology, she has also […]

Stephanie Holt is the president of Editors Victoria and Head of Operations with Overland journal. She is a freelance writer and editor and educator based in regional Victoria, on unceded Dja Dja Wurrung country, and was previously an editing teacher and program manager with RMIT University’s vocational writing and editing programs.

Renée Otmar has been a professional editor since 1989 and has worked extensively as an editor, public health researcher and ethicist. She is a consultant and practising editor in academic, creative nonfiction and fiction genres – in contemporary fiction, historical fiction, crime fiction and romance. She is a writer, ghostwriter and producer of life stories. […]

Camilla Cripps is a writer, editor and publisher with a special interest in Australian fiction and poetry. Living and working on Dharawal country, Camilla is an editing and publishing scholar at the University of Southern Queensland. She is a freelance editor and the production editor at Spineless Wonders. Through her research into trauma-informed editing practice, Camilla raises […]

Ben Eltham has been researching and writing about Australian arts and culture for more than two decades. He writes regularly for publications such as Crikey, Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, Overland and The Guardian and teaches in the Masters of Cultural and Creative Industries at Monash University. Ben’s report, ‘Creativity in Crisis: Rebooting Australia’s arts and entertainment sector […]

Kate Cuthbert is the Editorial Director at Pantera Press. Previously, she held senior roles at Writers Victoria and launched the Escape Publishing brand at Harlequin Australia. A genre fiction advocate and enthusiast, she recently completed a PhD developing research methodologies for the examination of book covers and book titles. She is also a co-host on […]

Susannah (she/her) has worked in publishing in Australia and Europe and is currently an Industry Associate, Publishing Programme, University of Melbourne. She is the co-author of How to Market Books 6e 2018 and How to Get a Job in Publishing 2e (planned 2022).

Dr Joely Taylor is a former research scientist who specialises in scientific and technical editing and has worked with publishing houses, universities, government departments and industry consultants. She is an Accredited Editor with IPEd and a Diplomate Editor in the Life Sciences with BELS. She is also an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP and […]

Teo Jing Xuan (Xuan) is the co-founder of Amplify Bookstore. Born & raised in Singapore, she’s always had a love for books and all things bookish. Falling back in love with reading led to a search for books with people like her. She found one and decided that no one should have to search as hard to […]

Angela Savage is an award-winning writer and CEO of Public Libraries Victoria. Her latest novel, Mother of Pearl, is published by Transit Lounge.

Sarah has more than 30 years of publishing experience, acquired in the UK as well as Australia. For 7 years, Sarah has been the Buying Manager for The Book House, a leading supplier of shelf-ready materials to Public Libraries around Australia. In her role, Sarah meets with major and independent publishers, acquires titles for clients […]

Heather Iveson is a Collections and Reader Development Librarian with the Boroondara Library Service and a Co-Convenor for the Public Libraries Victoria Collections Special Interest Group. She has previously been a judge and panel convenor for the Aurealis Awards.

Michael Earp is the editor of Kindred: 12 Queer #LoveOzYA Stories and contributor to Underdog: #LoveOzYA Short Stories. They have a teaching degree and a Masters in children’s literature and have worked between bookselling and publishing for twenty years as a children’s literature specialist. Their role managing The Little Bookroom saw them named ABA Bookseller […]

Incoming Editor of Meanjin Esther Anatolitis is one of Australia’s leading advocates for arts and culture. She is Hon. A/Prof at RMIT School of Art and a member of the National Gallery of Australia Governing Council. Esther was a founding SPN (SPUNC!) partner as the then CEO of Express Media, and since that time has gone on […]

Robbie Egan is CEO of the Australian Booksellers Association. Over 25 years in bookselling have fuelled his passion for books and bookshops. He believes that collaboration between publishers, authors and booksellers can improve our industry, generate meaningful jobs, and change lives through the transformative powers of literature.

Anna Burkey has a passion for books, reading and education. Hailing from Scotland, where she was on the founding team of Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature, Anna now lives in Melbourne/Naarm.  After several years with State Library Victoria and the Centre for Youth Literature, and establishing business training and startup program StartSpace, Anna’s over the […]

Sophie Cunningham’s most recent book is This Devastating Fever (Ultimo Press, 2022). She has held multiple roles in the publishing industry over the years and is currently the Chair of The Australian Society of Authors.

Born in Indonesia of French parents, who are themselves of mixed ethnicity: Basque, Spanish, Portuguese and French-Canadian as well as French, Dr Sophie Masson AM was brought up in France and Australia and now lives in regional NSW.  Sophie is the award-winning author of over 70 books, for children, young adults and adults, many of which have […]

Debbie Lee is Senior Manager, Content Acquisition and Business Development, Ingram Content Group. She works with publishers large and small across all market sectors, to assist with their print on demand, ebook and global distribution requirements. Debbie has experience as a trade sales rep, promoting literary fiction, non-fiction and children’s books, and as a publisher […]

Gary has worked in the industry for 37 years having held roles with Harper Collins, McGraw-Hill and Thorpe-Bowker. He started the industry e-commerce service PacStream and is currently co-owner of Books+Publishing along with responsibility for the Australian ISBN Agency and Bowker Data Products.

Marlene Lage works with Pegasus Media & Logistics as an Account and New Business Development Manager. Marlene manages several publishing clients ranging from self-publishers, smaller to larger publishers in both education and read for pleasure sectors (like Allen & Unwin and Lexis Nexis). She has many years of experience in print and applies her knowledge to find […]

Terri-ann White spent 25 years at The University of Western Australia as a professor and as founding director of Institute of Advanced Studies (1999–2011) and director of UWA Publishing (2006–2020). She is currently a Senior Honorary Fellow in the Vice-Chancellery at UWA.  Terri-ann White’s fiction and non-fiction writing has been published widely. Over the past […]

Dr Katherine Day is a lecturer in the publishing program at the University of Melbourne. She has over 15 years of editorial experience for some of Australia’s most regarded publishers. Her research explores the intersection between editorial practice and law.

Kylie Miller is an award-winning journalist and communications consultant with extensive experience working in Australia and overseas. After trading city life for a tree change in regional Victoria, Kylie experienced first-hand the devastating Black Summer bushfires. Kylie won a Federal Government grant and co-wrote her first children’s picture book, Heroes of Black Summer, to help children […]

Bec Kavanagh is a writer, literary critic and academic. She has had fiction and non-fiction published in a variety of publications including Meanjin, Overland, The Big Issue and The Guardian. Bec is the Youth Programming Manager at the Wheeler Centre and a sessional tutor at LaTrobe University.

Andrew Finegan is an advocate for the Australian arts and culture sector and a qualified librarian with more than 20 years of experience in education and government libraries. He has been a judge for the Aurealis Awards for the past four years, most recently convening the Young Adult Fiction category. He currently lives in Canberra.

Maria is the founder of audibooksradio and has audio-produced the stories of over 400 Australian writers in the past 3 years. Maria has worked in in publishing, writing, radio production, and the disability sector of the community broadcasting network. She runs a writers group with 600 members in Sydney. 

Anna Featherstone empowers writers and authors. She has authored five non-fiction books including the Australian Society of Authors’ recommended reading title Look–It’s Your Book! Write, Publish & Promote Your Non-Fiction Book: A Self-Publishing Guide for Australian Writers. Her words have appeared in The Guardian and Sydney Morning Herald. Anna is the Australian Ambassador for the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) and […]

Rachael McDiarmid has been in the book industry for over 30 years in a variety of product, sales, marketing and senior management roles. She has spent time on both sides of the fence—working primarily in academic and professional publishing, as well as a long stint in library supply where she managed publisher relations for the […]

Sam van der Plank is Publishing Officer at Monash University Publishing. He occupies a broad but pivotal role, working across sales, marketing, operations, production and acquisitions. He was recently the driving force behind Monash University Publishing’s onboarding onto BooksoniX, a title management and ONIX dissemination system.

Sonia Orchard is the founder and festival director of Mountain Writers Festival—Australia’s first writers’ festival to focus exclusively on all things environmental. After several covid cancellations, MtWF ran for the first time in early November 2022 on Wurundjeri Country (Macedon) and all events, including a commissioned play reading, sold out. Sonia is also the author […]

Emily Westmoreland is the Program Director for Willy Lit Fest. She runs Dinner Party Press, is the publisher of PENinsula, and is part of the team behind the Desperate Literature Prize for short fiction. She works as a bookseller by day. In 2023, she is the Penguin Random House Young Bookseller of the Year. 

Thuy On is Reviews Editor of ArtsHub and an arts journalist, editor and poet. She’s had two books of poetry published by UWAP: Turbulence (2020) and Decadence (2022). She’s written for a wide range of publications including The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, The Australian, The Age/SMH, Sydney Review of Books, Books & Publishing and Australian […]

Jo Case is an Adelaide-based writer and editor who is currently Deputy Editor, Books & Ideas at The Conversation. She has been associate publisher at Wakefield Press, deputy editor of Australian Book Review, books editor of The Big Issue and associate editor of Kill Your Darlings. A former program manager of Melbourne Writers Festival, Jo was a co-founder of the Feminist Writers Festival and a […]

Clare Millar is a writer, editor and bookseller based on Wurundjeri land. She is the Books Editor at The Big Issue, and a regular contributor to the Readings Monthly. In 2022, she was the inaugural Writer in Residence at Canberra Glassworks, and has been published in The Guardian, Meanjin, Overland and Kill Your Darlings, among others.

Cher Tan is an essayist and critic. She is an editor at Liminal and the reviews editor at Meanjin. Her debut essay collection Peripathetic is forthcoming in 2024.

USA Today Bestselling author, Morgana Best, started selling print direct in 1993 and ebooks (as well as print) direct from her websites in 2003. In 2007, indie authors turned to the retailers, but now the tide is turning back to selling direct. Morgana writes non-fiction for authors and cozy mysteries.

Michael’s father was a writer, so he grew up in a house overflowing with books. He has inherited his father’s love of words and writing, which is why he chose to work in publishing. Michael completed his Diploma in Professional Writing and Editing at Deakin University in 1997, and has since worked in-house and as […]

Andrew has been working in publishing and book distribution for 30+ years, previously with Pan Macmillan, Dennis Jones & Associates and now running his own company, eBook Alchemy, concentrating on global digital distribution of eBook and print-on-demand editions for over 50 Australian publishers and self-published authors, with almost 1000 eBooks and 700 POD titles.

Alex Adsett is a literary agent and publishing consultant with 25 years’ experience working in the publishing and bookselling industry. She has managed Alex Adsett Literary since 2008, and has helped thousands of authors review and negotiate their publishing deals. As an agent she represents more than 50 authors of all ages and genres, including […]