AustLit
Barbara Ker Wilson has enjoyed a long career in publishing in both England and Australia. She has edited mainly work for young readers and has written some thirty books including picture books, teenage novels and two adult novels. A consulting editor for UQP, she won the 1997 Pixie O’Harris Award for distinguished service to children's books.
Biography from The Writer's Press, 1998.
As well as the Pixie O'Harris Award, Barbara Ker Wilson received the Dromkeen Medal for outstanding achievement in the creation of Australian children's and young adult literature in 1999, and was made a member of the Order of Australia in 2004.
Barbara Ker Wilson died in September 2020. Her Guardian obituary highlighted her prescient comment on an unpublished manuscript submitted to Collins in the 1950s: 'If Paddington proved a great success, he could be made into a leading character, and have more books written about his adventures.'
Given the established reputation of the adult fiction published by UQP, I knew that the proposed youth list would embody integrity of purpose and aim to establish new writers of quality. Laurie then asked me if I would like to develop this new series, taking on the role of Editor. He knew that I had previously developed the young books list at Angus & Robertson (from 1966 to 1972) and had subsequently started Hodder & Stoughton’s children’s list. In fact, my very enjoyable work with adult books at The Reader’s Digest had been a new direction for me; before coming to Australia in 1964 I had begun my publishing career in the children’s books department at Oxford University Press in the UK, and continued as Managing Editor for children’s books at The Bodley Head and then at William Collins in London. As a writer, I had produced some 35 children’s books, both fiction and non-fiction.
I was intrigued by the idea of a return to publishing books for younger readers, and accepted Laurie Muller’s invitation. At this time I lived at Leura, in the Blue Mountains, out of Sydney, and to begin with I worked from home, visiting Brisbane from time to time to confer with my colleagues at the Press. From the beginning, Publishing Manager Craig Munro and fiction editor D’Arcy Randall, as well as the rest of UQP’s editorial and marketing departments, were enthusiastic about this new development. Later, after the list was established, Clare Forster brought her own special insights to the young books.
I began UQP's Young Adult Fiction list, as we decided to name it, by renewing my contacts within the children’s book world (especially the library and teaching areas, for the marketing of young books relies heavily on institutional budgets) and placing notices in the journals of the various Australian writers associations and literary magazines, announcing the new YAF list and inviting manuscripts for consideration.
Books are chosen for publication in a number of different ways: non-fiction, for instance, may be commissioned from certain authors on specific subjects; chance meetings with people who have fascinating experiences and unusual ideas can lead an editor to encourage them to start writing; perhaps a short story or novel by an adult writer seems to suggest that the author could write for a teenage audience; a work long out of print may be reissued in a new edition; literary agents solicit publishers’ interest in their clients; Australian copyright may be obtained for a book originally published elsewhere ... and then, and then, there are those unsolicited manuscripts which arrive at publishers’ offices every day, sent by aspiring authors who hopefully, eagerly, confidently, doubtfully wait to learn the fate of their ‘dearly beloved child’, as Jane Austen called her first published novel, Pride and Prejudice.
I have always, but always been a true believer in the potential precious ore to be mined from those piles of typescripts and computer print-outs, my belief firmly founded on my experience throughout decades of publishing adventures. In former days, out of those hillocks of paper I had read first manuscripts by writers such as Gillian Avery, Michael Bond (creator of Paddington Bear), Alan Garner, Mollie Hunter, William Mayne, Philippa Pearce, Rosemary Sutcliff, John Ryan (the ‘onlie begetter’ of Captain Pugwash), to name a few outstanding children’s writers (and, in John Ryan’s case, an illustrator). There’s an intense excitement in ‘discovering’ a new author. Sometimes the manuscript needs more work, occasionally it is the author’s second manuscript which is eventually published; the important thing is to recognise a new and individual voice arising from the narrative, and to be able to encourage authors to fulfil and expand their talent.
From the flood of unsolicited manuscripts sent to UQP since the Young Adult Fiction list was started have emerged writers of the calibre of Maureen Pople, Donna Sharp, James Grieve, Brian Caswell, Gregory Bastian, Judith Clarke, James Moloney, Jill Dobson, Ian Ottley and Stephen Measday. Two notable Queensland authors, Sue Gough and Michael Noonan, expressed interest in writing for the new list, and their teenage books have been exceptionally well received, while Dorothy Porter, whose poetry had appeared under the UQP imprint, also produced two excellent YAF titles. Alan Collins and Rosemary Dobson are two other adult writers who successfully turned to young books. While our YAF list is essentially Australian, we have included a few books originally published elsewhere: from the United States Deborah Savage’s novel The Flight of the Albatross, from New Zealand Diana Noonan’s Leaving the Snow Country, and from Canada Budge Wilson’s My Cousin Clarette.
In 1991 I proposed that we should extend our young books list to cover a lower age-group, as there appeared to be a market gap for quality fiction for young children. What should we call the new series? We wanted something that related to Queensland, and for a while we favoured ‘Cane Toads’! However, this idea was squashed, and the series eventually became ‘Storybridge’, a name that occurred to me as I was driving over that well-known Brisbane rivermark one afternoon. The Storybridge Series was launched in July 1993 with two short novels — Brian Caswell’s Mike and Mavis Scott’s The Magic Palace — and John Fairbairn’s collection of stories, Green Slime. By 1997 we had published a total of 30 titles, including Peter Carey’s delicious story The Big Bazoohley, shortlisted for the 1996 CBC ‘Book of the Year’ Award in the younger category, and James Moloney’s Swashbuckler, which won that year’s Award.
I had now been working with UQP for almost a decade, and once again I decided it was time to make a bid for my elusive ‘retirement’. The UQP young list now needed a full-time editor. At the Warana Festival of 1990 (now evolved into the Brisbane Writers’ Festival), I had been asked to launch a new Queensland publishing company, Jam Roll Press, the brainchild of Leonie Tyle, Robyn Sheahan and Robyn Collins, which was to specialise in picture books. Jam Roll produced some outstanding titles and featured illustrators such as Gregory Rogers, David Mackintosh, Narelle Oliver and Annmarie Scott and authors who included Gary Crew, Mark Svendsen, Janeen Brian and Jena Woodhouse. But this was the start of difficult times for Australian book publishing, and the market for higher-priced picture books was diminishing. Jam Roll Press, and Leonie Tyle, became part of UQP, with Leonie as the full-time Managing Editor of children’s books.
UQP’s children’s list is now one of the most highly regarded in Australia. Picture books as well as novels have achieved success in North America, the UK and Europe. In little more than a decade this prestigious list has emerged, encompassing the production of high-quality books for children of all ages.