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| History : |
Spinifex Press was established in March 1991 by Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein at a time of cut backs in publishing following the recession in Australia impacting especially on feminist and literary books. Spinifex began with four titles and quickly set up distribution in the US and found networks to expand into overseas markets in NZ and UK.
Spinifex has been at the forefront of technological change: publishing books about new technologies; being the first Australian publisher to offer a web-based catalogue and the third to have its full catalogue available for purchase from their website. In 2006, Spinifex was the first small press in Australia to release eBooks through an eBookstore attached to their website. Spinifex owners are regulars on social networking sites and participate in political and community events.
For Spinifex, publishing is a political act as well as an opportunity to engage in creative ways of producing good quality books. Spinifex has developed a number of strong specialist lists including Indigenous, writing from Asia and Africa, lesbian books as well as women’s health, violence against women, racism and cultural opportunism, ecology and economics, war and exile, prostitution and pornography. Their writers of fiction and poetry experiment with text, cross genres and produce high quality books which are useful class texts. Of the feminist publication companies created from the 1970s on, Spinifex Press the major feminist press continuing into the twenty-first century and adopting digital methods. |
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Publishers, Feminists |
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