Australian delegation to visit the US

If you’ll be in New York City in early June this year, look out for a group of eight Australian publishers, rights managers and literary agents, who will travel there from 4 to 8 June, as part of the Australia Council’s inaugural New York Publishers Program 2018.

Literary agent Alex Adsett of Alex Adsett Publishing Services, Allen & Unwin publisher Annette Barlow, Fremantle Press CEO Jane Fraser, Giramondo Publishing commissioning editor Nick Tapper, Pantera Press rights manager Katy McEwen, literary agent Gaby Naher of The Naher Agency, Hardie Grant Egmont publisher Marisa Pintado, and Text Publishing rights and export coordinator Khadija Caffoor will all participate in a five-day program of industry meetings, marketing briefings and networking opportunities.

Wenona Byrne, director of literature at the Australia Council for the Arts, said the delegation would visit major publishing houses including Flatiron Books, where the group will meet with executive vice president Amy Einhorn, and will be ‘attending one-on-one meetings with publishers and editors’ at the offices of Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Farrar Straus & Giroux, Melville House and Europa Editions, with more meetings ‘still being finalised.’

Delegate member and Pantera Press rights manager Katy McEwen will be representing a suite of new Australian authors after the publisher recently acquired boutique Australian publishing company the Author People from co-founder Lou Johnson. Pantera Press CEO Alison Green said the company was ‘incredibly excited’ about the potential the Author People model unlocked and that Pantera is ‘eager to introduce new readers to these great storytellers’. ‘We believe in signing authors, not books, so we’ve loved the author-centric model that Lou embedded into the DNA of the Author People,’ said Green.

Another delegate member, literary agent Alex Adsett, said she will also visit BookExpo America and the inaugural New York Rights Fair. ‘Although I represent a broad range of titles across all ages and genres, a core part of my list is crime, speculative fiction and romance, and the biggest market for these is the US,’ she said. You can read more about Adsett’s list in our profile below.

Matthia Dempsey
Editor
Think Australian
books.publishing@thorpe.com.au

Category: Think Australian editorial