Publisher of the Month with Phillipa McGuinness
What was your pathway to publishing?
I was about to land a cadetship with The Age, or so I thought. When I missed out, I applied for a job as a publishing assistant with Cambridge University Press. Before long I was working in CUP’s Sydney office, a terrace in Surry Hills. Bits of crumbling wall would fall onto our desks, so manuscripts were often covered in sand. It has always been a glamorous industry, but one I’m very glad I fell into.
What was the first book you published?
An arcane legal studies book, the name of which I can’t remember – not such an auspicious start. But I do remember the second or third: Tom Griffiths’s Hunters and Collectors: The antiquarian imagination in Australia (1996) – an early career highlight, and a book that made me realise what Australian history could be.
Do you edit the books you commission?
Structural editing, yes; copyediting, no.
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