Founded | 1976 |
---|---|
Country of origin | Australia |
Headquarters location | Fremantle |
Publication types | Books |
Official website | Official website |
Fremantle Press (formerly known as Fremantle Arts Centre Press) is an independent publisher in Western Australia. Fremantle Press was established by the Fremantle Arts Centre in 1976. It focuses on publishing Western Australian writers and writing.
It publishes works of fiction, literary prose and poetry, social history, autobiography, biography, trade books in areas such as food and photography, children's picture books and fiction for young readers.
The Fremantle Arts Centre Press was started in the mid 70s when it published the first of its books which included a poetry anthology. The first author of a whole book was Elizabeth Jolley who wrote Five Acre Virgin and other Stories [1] which was one her first published works in 1976.
Known initially for fiction works the press had a substantial financial success with a non-fiction work about an Australian autobiography entitled "A Fortunate Life" written by an 85-year-old Albert Facey. This work was licensed to Penguin books and sold over 750,000 copies. The arrangement with Penguin grew to a permanent distribution deal with the publication of My Place by the indigenous author Sally Morgan in 1987. This was a national success and in 2000 when they published Benang another award-winning novel by the indigenous author Kim Scott. [1]
The press celebrated its first ten years of publishing in 1986. [2] [3] In the 1990s the press was involved in publishing archival materials. [4]
The press changed its name to the Fremantle Press in 2007. [5]
In the late 1970s and early 1980s the press had a dedicated series edited by William Grono called West Coast Writing –of books of short stories and poetry. It included works by Nicholas Hasluck, Tom Hungerford, Alan Alexander, Andrew Burke, Lee Knowles, Alec Choate, Justina Williams, Peter Cowan, Julie Lewis, and James Legasse. [6] The press published an poetry anthology of Western Australian works by Ryan and Kinsella in 2017. [7]
Subsequent published authors include Albert Facey, Sally Morgan, Elizabeth Jolley, Tim Winton, Liz Byrski, Julia Lawrinson, Kim Scott, John Kinsella, John A. Long, Tracy Ryan, Richard Woldendorp, Frances Andrijich, Carolyn Polizzotto, Wayne Ashton, Anna Haebich, Philip Salom, Eoin Cameron, Kate Lamont, Kate McCaffrey, Katherine Summers,Simon Haynes, Craig Silvey and Stephen Kinnane.
Since 1988, Fremantle Press has sponsored the T.A.G. Hungerford Award, a biennial award given to an unpublished writer for a work of adult fiction, narrative non-fiction or young adult fiction. [8]
Fremantle Press established the Fogarty Literary Award in association with the Fogarty Foundation in December 2018. This biennial award is for an unpublished manuscript by a Western Australian writer aged 18 to 35 valued at AU$20,000. In addition, the winning author receives a publishing contract for their manuscript. [9]
John Kinsella is an Australian poet, novelist, critic, essayist and editor. His writing is strongly influenced by landscape, and he espouses an "international regionalism" in his approach to place. He has also frequently worked in collaboration with other writers, artists and musicians.
Dorothy Coade Hewett was an Australian playwright, poet and author, and a romantic feminist icon. In writing and in her life, Hewett was an experimenter. As her circumstances and beliefs changed, she progressed through different literary styles: modernism, socialist realism, expressionism and avant garde. She was a member of the Australian Communist Party in the 1950s and 1960s, which informed her work during that period.
Hal Gibson Pateshall Colebatch was a West Australian author, historian, poet, lecturer, journalist, editor, and lawyer.
Monica Elizabeth Jolley AO was an English-born Australian writer who settled in Western Australia in the late 1950s and forged an illustrious literary career there. She was 53 when her first book was published, and she went on to publish fifteen novels, four short story collections and three non-fiction books, publishing well into her 70s and achieving significant critical acclaim. She was also a pioneer of creative writing teaching in Australia, counting many well-known writers such as Tim Winton among her students at Curtin University.
Kim Scott is an Australian novelist of Aboriginal Australian ancestry. He is a descendant of the Noongar people of Western Australia.
The Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry is awarded annually as part of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards for a book of collected poems or for a single poem of substantial length published in book form. It is named after Kenneth Slessor (1901–1971).
Lionel Fogarty, also published as Lionel Lacey, is an Indigenous Australian poet and political activist.
Westerly is a literary magazine that has been produced at the University of Western Australia since 1956. It currently publishes two issues a year, and in 2016 released its first online special issues. The journal maintains a specific focus on the Australian and Asian regions, but has published literary and cultural content from international authors. The magazine publishes fiction, poetry, cultural, autobiographic, and scholarly essays, and interviews.
The City of Fremantle T.A.G. Hungerford Award is given biennially to a full-length manuscript of fiction or narrative non-fiction by a Western Australian author previously unpublished in book form. It is sponsored by the City of Fremantle, Fremantle Press, Fremantle Library and The West Australian.
UWA Publishing, formerly known as the Text Books Board and then University of Western Australia Press, is a Western Australian publisher established in 1935 by the University of Western Australia. It produces a range of non-fiction and fiction titles.
Tracy Ryan is an Australian poet and novelist. She has also worked as an editor, publisher, translator, and academic.
Marcella Polain is an Australian-resident poet, novelist and short fiction writer.
Sarah Holland-Batt is a contemporary Australian poet, critic, and academic.
The South Australian Literary Awards, until 2024 known as the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, comprise a group of biennially-granted literary awards established in 1986 by the Government of South Australia. Formerly announced during Adelaide Writers' Week in March, as part of the Adelaide Festival, from 2024 the awards are announced in a dedicated ceremony in October. The awards include national as well as state-based prizes, and offer three fellowships for South Australian writers. Several categories have been added to the original four.
Stephen Kenneth Kelen, known as S. K. Kelen, is an Australian poet and educator. S. K. Kelen began publishing poetry in 1973, when he won a Poetry Australia contest for young poets and several of his poems were published in that journal.
Lisa Gorton is an Australian poet, novelist, literary editor and essayist. She is the author of three award-winning poetry collections: Press Release, Hotel Hyperion, and Empirical. Her second novel, The Life of Houses, received the NSW Premier's People's Choice Award for Fiction and the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction (shared). Gorton is also the editor of Black Inc's anthology Best Australian Poems 2013.
Charmaine Papertalk Green is an Indigenous Australian poet. As Charmaine Green she works as a visual and installation artist.
The Fogarty Literary Award is an Australian award that was established in December 2018 by Fremantle Press in association with the Fogarty Foundation. It is a biennial award for an unpublished manuscript by a Western Australian writer aged 18 to 35 valued at AU$20,000. In addition, the winning author receives a publishing contract for their manuscript.