AustLit

The Writers' Press was founded by Nuri Mass in order to promote Australian authorship at a time when it was sorely needed. Nuri Mass printed her books on a printing press in the garage at her home in Summer Hill in Sydney. With the subsequent death of her husband and the need to earn money and raise her children, the press went into a hiatus until 1964 when it was revived.

Addendum to the novel, Randy Blair, by Nuri Mass: The Writers' Press: 'This book, Randy Blair, is the first major publication by the Writers' Press- which is a unique publishing venture in the history of Australia. It has been founded, financed, and - up to the present [1955] - operated by a woman with no previous knowledge whatever of the highly specialized art of printing, but with a great desire to encourage the production of fine, genuine literature.

It has come into existence, not as a profit-making business, but as an ideal, and a challenge, for the purpose of printing true literary efforts regardless of the fact that they may lack any present commercial value.

And just as the Writers' Press makes no profits, neither does it preach morals or take political sides. But it does impose certain important requirements upon its authors; authors who may, in time, play a significant part in shaping Australia's literary destiny.

Whether the phase of life they are portraying be humorous or tragic, simple or complex, highbrow or lowbrow, The Writers' Press requires that its authors should handle their subject with the technique of the practised craftsman, with the realistic and balanced viewpoint of the scientist-and above all, with the frankness and courage of the genuine artist.'