WestWords is Western Sydney’s Literature Development Organisation and is dedicated to creating and sharing the stories, peoples and issues that are the heart of Western Sydney.

Founded in 2007 as a project organisation it became an independent entity in 2014. It publishing program comprises of two imprints WestWords and Dirt Lane Press.

Under WestWords it publishes books that emanate from its programs to develop the emerging voices of the region as well as books that speak to its diverse populations.

Dirt Lane Press was founded in 2016 by Margrete Lamond with the aim of publishing picture books whose themes, formats and target audiences were deemed risky or uncommercial by mainstream publishers. Based in Orange NSW, it was run by a group of volunteer publishers, editors, booksellers, and educators across the country, including publishing luminary Mark Macleod, and published notable creators such as immediate-past Children’s Laureate Ursula Dubosarsky, Matt Ottley and Sophie Masson.
After seven years and with many of its books having been shortlisted for prestigious literary awards, turned into animated films and translated into multiple languages, Dirt Lane Press reached a point in its evolution where it had outgrown the available resources required to keep it flourishing and expanding. The clearest way forward was to find Dirt Lane a home with an organisation that shared its goals and aspirations, and had the resources to help the list grow in the ways was always envisioned for it. On March 1st 2022 Dirt Lane Press wound up and came under the umbrella of WestWords. Margrete Lamond continued as the imprint’s publisher.