Ventura introduces new imprint for emerging writers

Ventura Press has launched a new imprint for emerging writers, to be curated by former creative director of Varuna, the Writers’ House, Peter Bishop.

Peter Bishop Books will aim to publish two titles per year, chosen by Bishop ‘for their literary merit, rather than their commercial appeal’. One title will be part of an anthology series of conversations between writers about writing, and the other will be by a writer of any genre, with Bishop looking in particular for ‘writers who are a problem for the marketing departments of other publishers’.

The imprint plans to be supported through a crowdfunding model, with subscribers donating a ‘small’ annual fee in return for a monthly journal, Peter Bishop and Friends.

Ventura director and publisher Jane Curry said Bishop’s ‘passion for the creative process has been at the very heart of Australian writing for two decades’. ‘After many years as the creative force behind Varuna, I am thrilled that Peter has joined forces with Ventura Press to publish his own list into the Australian book trade,’ said Curry.

The imprint will launch this month with two ‘companion memoirs written by childhood neighbours from the working class Melbourne suburb of Broadmeadows’: The Many Ways of Seeing by Nick Gleeson, co-authored by Bishop (June),  which ‘tells the inspiring true story of Nick, an adventurer, athlete and disability advocate who has been blind since the age of seven’; and Back to Broady by Caroline van de Pol (July), which ‘tells Caroline’s bittersweet story of growing up in a large Irish Catholic family in 1960’s Australia’. 

For more information about the publisher, click here.

Category: Local news