Foot in the Door

Sarah Hollingsworth grew up in Tasmania and studied for a BA in English Literature at University of Tasmania, before relocating to Melbourne where she received a Graduate Diploma in Publishing and Communications from the University of Melbourne. She worked for eight years in academic and trade publishing, holding various publicity, sales and marketing roles at Melbourne University Publishing and Hardie Grant Publishing. At the start of 2020 she moved to Writers Victoria to take up the role of Marketing and Communications Manager.   You can view the Australian Publishing Wages Google Doc here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1f7wJXdvz8larHA8gRwrEuOYAF7YqVpA9Li7fsW_HsHo/edit#gid=1417976645 

Justine Sless writes, teaches, researches and performs stand-up comedy. She has an MA by research in creative writing, and has had stories and articles published in anthologies and academic journals. Justine is co host of Sless to Harsel  an IGTV show that is an irreverent twice weekly, two minute chat about books and writing. She is also on the board of Writers Victoria. Noè Harsel is Chair of Writers Victoria, host of Live Write (an online writers’ group), and co-host of Sless to Harsel. She has published articles and short stories in a number of magazines and anthologies. Links: https://www.instagram.com/slesstoharsel/  https://writersvictoria.org.au/ 

Hannah Ludbrook is a Senior Publicist at Hardie Grant Publishing. She has over four years of industry experience, starting out as a Bookseller in an independent bookshop in London. She went on to work for Penguin Random House UK before returning to Australia and joining the Hardie Grant team. She will read anything but has a soft spot for crime thrillers.

Coco McGrath is an editor and writer based in Melbourne. Her work has been published in The Lifted Brow, Stilts, Kill Your Darlings and The Big Issue. She is an Editor at Affirm Press.

Kathleen O'Neill is a Marketing Executive at Hardie Grant Publishing. She has worked in the industry for three years after completing a Master of Creative Writing, Editing and Publishing at the University of Melbourne. Katty specialises in copywriting and book metadata, and has a particular interest in the ways readers discover books. Last year, she co-managed Hardie Grant’s inaugural Spark Prize. She writes fiction in her spare time and reads and reviews books on Instagram @chapterkat.

Pooja Desai is an award-winning designer currently working as the Head of Design for Hardie Grant Children's Publishing. Before stumbling upon her one true love – publishing – her design career has spanned across packaging, product, magazines, marketing and digital. In her free time, Pooja runs her own freelance business working with NGOs such as Footscray Community Arts Centre, Road to Refuge and Human Rights and Arts Film Festival.

Angus Dalton is a Marketing & Publicity Executive at Simon & Schuster Australia and is the co-founding editor of Sweaty City, an independent magazine about climate change and urban ecology that launched in February 2020. His stories about octopuses, city-dwelling water dragons and rogue rescue dogs have appeared in Best Australian Science Writing 2019, Voiceworks, Overland and Australian Geographic. He has worked as the Editorial Manager of Good Reading magazine, the Editor-in-Chief of Grapeshot magazine and has been a Fiction Intern at Kill Your Darlings.

Kate Whitfield came to trade publishing via magazines and copywriting and later travel guides, working as an editor at Lonely Planet for almost ten years. In 2014 she came to Allen and Unwin as an editor of books for children and young adults and since then has worked on many bestselling and award-winning books with authors such as Paul Jennings, Wendy Orr and Barry Jonsberg.

Radhiah Chowdhury is a Muslim Bangladeshi-Australian author and editor living on unceded Bidjigal Land in Sydney's West. She is currently a commissioning editor and senior audiobook producer at Penguin Random House Australia, and was the 2019-2020 Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellow. Her most recent picture book, The Katha Chest, was published by Allen & Unwin in April 2021.   If you would like to read Rhadhiah's Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship report, see link below: https://www.publishers.asn.au/news/bdef-report-offers-australian-publishing-pathways-to-inclusivity 

Kajal Narayan started her publishing career at Rockpool Publishing and joined Pantera Press in 2020 after working at HarperCollins for five years, most recently as a Senior Marketing and Communications Executive.