What Readers Want

Editor of Meanjin Esther Anatolitis is one of Australia’s leading advocates for arts and culture. With an arts and media leadership career spanning over two decades, Esther is Hon A/Prof at RMIT School of Art, a member of the National Gallery of Australia Governing Council, and Principal of creative consultancy Test Pattern. A prolific writer and commentator, her book Place, Practice, Politics was published in 2022.

Grace Lucas-Pennington is an Aboriginal (Bundjalung) editor specialising in fiction and poetry. She grew up mostly between northern NSW and the greater Logan/Brisbane area. Grace is the Senior Editor at State Library of Queensland's black&write! Indigenous Writing and Editing Project.

Alexandra Payne is a publisher at Murdoch Books, Australia’s leading lifestyle publisher. She has worked in publishing for more than two decades at a number of houses including Penguin and Hardie Grant. More recently, she was the Non-Fiction Publisher at UQP, where books she commissioned won awards such as the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction, the QLD Literary Awards Non-Fiction Book of the Year and the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for History. At Murdoch Books, she focuses on the genres of sustainable living, personal development, health, narrative non-fiction and anything off the beaten track. She’s enthralled by books, authors and readers and firmly believes books can change the world.

Clair Hume is the publisher for the children’s and young adult list at UQP. Clair has worked with many well-loved children’s book creators including Nova Weetman, Zana Fraillon and Peter Carnavas, and published award-winning debut creators including CBCA Book of the Year winner Gwyn Perkins. Clair joined UQP in 2019, attracted by their commitment to literary merit and publishing works of cultural significance.

Terri-ann White is Publisher, Upswell Publishing, a new literary imprint started in mid-2021 in Perth. In the past she has been a bookseller, a writer, and a professor at the University of Western Australia: teaching, directing a cross-disciplinary research centre, and publishing books in a university setting.