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New Australia Council editing and mid-list author grants awarded

14 April 2014   Books+Publishing
@booksandpublishing

The successful applicants for two new Australia Council for the Arts grants for Australian editors and for Australian publishers of mid-list authors have been announced.

The successful applicants for the Publishing and Promotion of Mid-list Writers grants are:

  • Affirm Press ($18,000 for the publication and promotion of Paddy O’Reilly
  • Allen & Unwin ($40,000 for Danielle Wood, Charlotte Wood and Barry Jonsberg)
  • Fremantle Press ($32,150 for Peter Docker and Deb Fitzpatrick)
  • Giramondo ($40,000 for Gerald Murnane, Nicholas Jose and Joanne Burns)
  • Hardie Grant Egmont ($34,425 for Libby Gleeson, Freya Blackwood, Sally Morgan and Bronwyn Bancroft)
  • Magabala Books ($22,700 for Marie Munkara and Jared Thomas)
  • Random House Australia ($26,000 for Belinda Murrell)
  • Scribe ($40,000 for Georgia Blain, Jacinta Halloran and Robert Gott)
  • Text Publishing ($40,000 for Wayne McCauley, Krissy Kneen and Vikki Wakefield)
  • Transit Lounge ($32,900 for Geraldine Wooller and Patrick Holland)
  • UQP ($39,010 for Tony Birch, Samuel Wagan Watson and Elizabeth Fensham)
  • Wakefield Press ($40,000 for Bel Schenk, Stephen Orr and Adrian Mitchell)
  • Walker Books Australia ($40,000 for Sally Murphy, Ananda Braxton-Smith and Ambelin Kwaymullina).

 

In total, Australian publishers ‘received an extra $445,185 in support from this round of “unfunded excellence” to invest in publishing and promoting mid-list writers’, said the Australia Council. It also stated that the panel was able to fund 50% of applications ‘and it was noted they were unable to fund all deserving applications’.

The panel also commented that while the literary merit of the authors to be published was high, ‘the audience development plans were conventional and lacked some detail on how the mid-list writers would be promoted beyond normal scope’. 

The successful applicants for the Editorial Professional Development grants are:

  • Cate Blake, Penguin ($11,551 to attend Yale Leadership Strategies in Book Publishing course)
  • Michelle Cahill ($13,000 for an editorial mentorship with Kingston University Press)
  • Alice Grundy, Giramondo and Seizure ($15,000 to visit publishers in China for professional development)
  • Jocelyn Hungerford, Penguin ($9000 for Letterpress printing course and mentorship travel to US)
  • Janet Hutchinson ($15,000 to investigate editing Indigenous author manuscripts in North America and Canada)
  • Kent MacCarter, Cordite Poetry Review ($14,000 to attend Columbia University’s Summer Publishing Course 2015)
  • Mark MacLean ($8758 for engagement with new publishing technologies and renewal of Indigenous author connections)
  • Agata Mrva-Montoya, Sydney University Press ($15,000 for skills development in the area of acquisition and editing)
  • Abigail Nathan, Bothersome Words ($5200 to attend a series of UK conferences for skills development)
  • Genevieve O’Callaghan ($15,000 to edit an exhibition catalogue on the work of Yvonne Koolmatrie for the Art Gallery of South Australia)
  • Mary Rennie, HarperCollins ($11,995 for a mentorship at HarperCollins US and Canada)
  • Zora Sanders, Meanjin ($10,650 for editorial mentorships and professional partnerships with international literary journals).

 

As previously reported in Books+Publishing, the two new grants were announced last year.

 

Category: Local news