The The NSW Writers' Centre

Mentors – Editor Mentors

Brian Cook owns and operates the Manuscript Appraisal Agency. He has been involved in publishing for over 33 years and much of that time has been spent with a focus on books for children and young people. As Children’s Publisher at HarperCollins he led the development of the HarperCollins children’s list. He has had years of experience in the international market place in sales and acquisition of both adult and children’s books.

Laura Daniel has been involved in writing, editing, and other aspects of publishing on and off for more than forty years, since 1968, and has worked with a wide variety of material. Writing under various names, she has authored books and articles on history, social and cultural issues, nature, and travel, and has contributed to several encyclopaedias and partworks, writing in a range of genres and on a wide range of subjects including nature, history, philosophy, religion, cooking, and a plethora of trivia. As an editor and mentor in manuscript development, she has worked on both fiction and non-fiction books and magazine articles. In fiction, she has worked across many genres from romance through adventure to religious and philosophical fiction.

Laura is available to work in person as well as via email and Skype.

Diana Giese has worked for publishers large and small, including Macmillan, Oxford University Press, HarperEducational and Brandl & Schlesinger, in Australia and overseas. She has collaborated with many writers to help them develop their best possible work, and produced and promoted prize-winners and excellent sellers. She is the author of six books, including Astronauts, Lost Souls and Dragons (University of Queensland Press), Beyond Chinatown (National Library of Australia) and A better place to live (Freshwater Bay Press). She has also worked as a literary journalist for major newspapers and ABC radio, and served on writers’ festival and prize committees. Diana is ready to help you write, produce and market memoirs, fiction and history, across a table or via phone and email, from Sydney. www.dianagiese.com.au

Diana is available to work work in person as well as via phone or email.

Catherine Hammond earned a Masters Degree in literature and creative writing (Boston) and a MA in philosophy (Fordham, New York), and taught English literature, creative writing and philosophical psychology in both Boston and Sydney, in tertiary institutes. She has authored two high school texts, a book of short stories, a biography and a public speaking aid. She edited and contributed to a breakthrough work entitled, Creation Spirituality and the Dreamtime (Millennium, Sydney). As a freelance editor, she now assesses manuscripts and edits for both publishers and individual writers, and has been a mentor at the NSW Writers’ Centre for several years, also conducting courses at the Centre. Catherine is a frequent speaker at various workshops and writers’ groups, focusing in the past year on opportunities in online and e-publishing.

Catherine is available to work in person as well as via phone, email and Skype.

Nicola O’Shea has been working as a book editor in Australian publishing since 1995. She worked in-house at HarperCollins Publishers for many years; and as a freelance editor now works for a range of publishers including HarperCollins, Pan Macmillan, Allen & Unwin, Random House, Hachette Australia. She also teaches editing at UTS and Sydney University. She edits both adult and children’s/YA fiction, as well as narrative non-fiction.

Nicola is available to work in person as well as via phone or email.

Sharon Rundle co-edited Fear Factor: Terror Incognito, Indo-Australian short stories, Picador India (2009) Picador Australia (2010). She co-edited, Peacock Memosaic, a new media collection of stories (2010). Sharon edits the University of Technology Sydney quarterly Journal Writers Connect and is head of the UTS Alumni Writers’ Network. She has published and broadcast stories, essays and articles in Australia and internationally including in: Encounters: Modern Australian Short Stories and Desert in Bloom – Indian Women’s Fiction in English. She is co-author of Round Table Writing and author of Changes & Chances. She is an academic at the University of Technology Sydney and has taught English, Writing and IT subjects for Higher Education institutions in Australia and the UK for eighteen years. She was awarded the 2010 UTS Alumni Award for Excellence; the UTS SMSA Medallion; and a Commonwealth Short Story prize. www.roundtablewriting.com

Sharon is available to work in person as well as via phone or email.