Louise Poland

Louise Poland. ‘Feminist Media’ in A Companion to the Australian Media.
Ed. Bridget Griffen–Foley, (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2014): pp. 70–72.
This article surveys Australian feminist media production of newspapers, journals, books, magazines, radio, film and television, blogs, websites and social media from the late nineteenth century until the present.

Deborah Jordan and Louise Poland. ‘Star Making: A Publishing History of Thea Astley’, eTropic: An Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, 12 (2), 2013 (released in 2014): 21–29.
'This article focuses directly on Thea Astley’s publishing history from the time of her involvement with Brisbane’s avant garde in the 1950s, her early inclusion in regional collections and her emergence as a Miles Franklin prize-winning author through the enabling pen and advocacy of one of Angus & Robertson (A&R)’s finest fiction editors, Beatrice Davis, to the establishment in the 1980s of Astley’s ultimate author-publisher relationship with Penguin Books and her own overseas literary agent. It also examines the publishing trajectory of selected novels released and re-issued by the University of Queensland Press (UQP) and Penguin Books and revisits the divides between writer and editor, publisher and publicist, and the dis/enabling inspiration of difference in the tropics in the context of the gendered histories of publishing at A&R, Penguin Books and UQP.' (p. 21)

Louise Poland. ‘Invisible, Unacknowledged but Ubiquitous: Nan McDonald Joins Angus & Robertson’ in Telling Stories: Australian Life and Literature 1935–2012, Eds Tania Dalziell and Paul Genoni, (Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, 2013): 77–83.
'When booksellers Angus & Robertson (A&R) closed their shop fronts in 2011 and became an online retailer only, it was another watershed in an association with Australian books and literature that had commenced in the 1880s. As well as being notable booksellers, A&R were also the foremost publishers of Australian fiction and non-fiction for much of the twentieth century and as such they were responsible for selecting and shaping the stories that Australians both told and read. A&R were blessed in their publishing role with a number of high profile editors – perhaps most notably Beatrice Davis – but Davis was in turn assisted by some very capable staff, none more so than Nan McDonald. McDonald's career at A&R gives some insight into a little told, behind-the-scenes story of the changes that swept through Australian publishing in the latter half of the twentieth century.' (p. 77.)

Louise Poland and Ivor Indyk. ‘Rejected by America? Some Tensions in Australian–American Literary Relations’ in Reading Across the Pacific: Australian–United States Intellectual Histories, Eds Robert Dixon and Nicholas Birns, (Sydney: University of Sydney Press, 2010): 309–322.
'This chapter focuses on the period from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, a watershed period in Australia–US literary relations, which saw the publication in the US of Australian novelists Peter Carey, David Malouf, Jessica Anderson, Thea Astley, Elizabeth Jolley, Helen Garner, Tim Winton and Beverley Farmer among others, but which was also crossed by tensions and contradictions which led to confusion, disappointment, lost opportunities, and sometimes the outright rejection of important Australian authors and their books. Among these tensions, we look at three in particular: the promising but limited role played by the multinational publisher (in this case Penguin Books) offering Australian titles through its US affiliate (Viking Penguin); the intervention by literary agents in Australia - US literary publishing relations; and the difference in values between the two cultures, which served to hinder the appreciation of important works of Australian writing.' (p. 309)

Kath McLean and Louise Poland (with additional research by Jacinta van den Berg). A Case for Literature: The Effectiveness of Subsidies to Australian Publishers, 1995–2005. (Sydney: Australia Council for the Arts, May 2010 (released October 2010)): 1–68:
Over the ten-year period under examination, at least 800 titles were subsidised by the Literature Board. This project examines the range of titles and publishers supported by the subsidies, and considers the extent to which those titles made a significant contribution to Australian literature, either directly, in recognition of their value, or indirectly through the contribution they made to authors’ careers and reputations, and to the reputations and lists of the publishers concerned.

POLAND, Louise, ‘Setting the Agenda: Feminist Presses and Publishing Politics in Australia 1974–2003’, Ph.D. thesis, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, 2007: 393 pp.
This thesis recovers and records a history of the continuum of Australian feminist presses that emerged from the Australian Women’s Liberation Movement, and demonstrates that in Australian feminist publishing, feminist activism is linked with book publishing at the site of cultural production. The study also assesses the role of the independent (Australian-owned) publishing sector in establishing a female presence in Australian literature. Finally, it examines the feminist presses that operated in the 1990s in the context of a changing publishing industry and argues that in the merging of commercial and political imperatives an adaptive or hybrid model of feminist publishing emerged in Australia.
[Title page, table of contents and chapter one available for download.]

Louise Poland. ‘Publishing for Posterity: Beatrice Davis and Angus & Robertson 1937–73’. Journal of Publishing, Australian Special Issue (2), August 2007: 114–142.
'Beatrice Davis worked for over fifty years in the Australian publishing industry, thirty-six of them at Angus & Robertson. As the firm's General Editor for most of that time she was responsible for the publication of a great many non-fiction titles in addition to literary fiction. She fostered A&R's patronage of the literary arts and helped shape more than a generation of national literary achievement. She also witnessed a time of great change in Australian publishing. When she joined A&R in 1937, Australian publishing was a craft-oriented, suitably 'genteel' pursuit for an educated woman who did not want to teach. By the time she left the firm in 1973, it had become a market-driven industry dominated increasingly by profit-driven, commodity publishing. This essay traces her career and seeks to identify some of the distinctive aspects of her approach to publishing. (p. 114.)

Louise Poland. ‘The Business, Craft and Profession of the Book Editor’ in Making Books: Contemporary Australian Publishing, Eds David Carter and Anne Galligan, (Brisbane: UQP, 2007): 96–115.
'Making books for the book trade is a high-risk, commercial venture. In a marketplace dominated today by large multinational corporations and international product, publishers pursue ever-greater efficiencies and profits. Editors, who are at the heart of the process of publishing, are affected by this profit-driven culture. Book editing is a craft-oriented vocation and in-house book editors were once a cornerstone of the publishing firm. In some publishing companies, editors still have this status but increasingly publishing companies outsource their editorial work to a growing band of freelance editors and when project budgets are tightened, editing to a high professional standard is a common casualty.
The publishing industry is a diverse and complex field comprising several sectors, including trade, educational, academic, professional, journal, and information and reference publishing.  Editors have a vital role to play in all of these sectors in shaping and improving authors’ works for publication as books, periodicals or electronic texts. In large sectors that lie outside of book publishing, such as magazine and newspaper publishing, corporate publishing, educational training, government publishing and web publishing, sub-editors, content editors, communications officers and others carry out editorial work that is similar to the copyediting of books or journals. The focus here, however, is on editors in the book publishing industry with an emphasis on their role and status, their own perceptions and the professionalisation of their role.' (p. 96)

Louise Poland. ‘‘Sisterhood is Powerful”: Sisters Publishing and Book Club in Australia 1978–85’. Paradise: New Worlds of Books and Readers, a special issue of Script & Print: Bulletin of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand (BSANZ), 29 (1–4), 2005 (released in 2007): 276–289.

POLAND, Louise, ‘Out of Type: Women in Publishing in Australia, 1931–1973’, M.A. thesis, National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University, 2002; 229 pp.
This study represents an attempt to re-evaluate women’s significance within Australian book publishing, especially during its formative years. It identifies over three hundred women who were active in publishing and the book trade in Australia pre-1974. Of these, ten publishers and editors, eight of whom have not previously been the subject of any known academic scrutiny, are selected for case study. The thesis argues that mainstream histories of the book have consistently marginalised women and calls for a re-reading of book culture in Australia.