Kim Scott Walwyn Shortlist Announced

Posted on April 16, 2013 in Uncategorized

The Prize is named in honour of Kim Scott Walwyn, a Publishing Director at Oxford University Press who died in 2002. She was widely regarded as a dynamic and exceptional publisher within her lifetime and served as a mentor to several people entering the industry. The Prize is open to any woman who has worked in publishing in the UK for up to seven years and is supported by the Publishing Training Centre (the PTC), Booktrust and the SYP.

The Society of Young Publishers are very proud to once again sponsor the Kim Scott Walwyn prize and it was a great a privilege personally to be the first ever male judge of the prize. I have to say I was blown away by every single applicant. Each and every one showed passion, creativity and dedication; not only to their jobs but the industry as a whole and highlighted just why the SYP sponsor the prize – to support those whose imagination and fearlessness drive the industry into the future.

It was very hard to decide on a shortlist and every single applicant should be proud of the work they have done, and continue to do, but this year’s four person short list is ….

Laura Austin

Laura’s stellar seven-year career in publishing started at Pearson ELT, before moving on to Cengage Learning and Oxford University Press, but her really innovative achievement was to set up BookMachine. In a very short span of time BookMachine has become an international event organisation for publishing professionals who want to network. They host events all over the UK and now also in New York, Toronto and Barcelona. Laura’s vast energy and ability to turn an idea into something real and useful for the publishing industry convinced the judges she should be on this very strong shortlist.

Juliet Mushens

Juliet’s impressive career trajectory began in the marketing department at HarperCollins. After two years she moved to Peters, Fraser & Dunlop to become an assistant to two literary agents. Within eight months Juliet became an agent, and two months later she sold her first book at auction. Her intuition for excellent storytelling has enabled her to establish a list of bestselling books in a very short space of time: to date, Juliet has sold thirteen fiction titles and a further ten non-fiction titles. In 2012, Juliet moved to The Agency Group as a Literary Agent, charged with the responsibility of developing the UK rostrum of authors. As one referee said, “Juliet’s talent, personality and drive make me confident she is one of the industries leaders of the future”.

Laura Palmer

Laura started her career as an editorial assistant at Quercus in 2007—where her early championing of an then obscure Scandinavian book called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo helped move it into worldwide success. In 2011, after just four years in the industry, Laura became a founder director of the publisher Head of Zeus. The founding team of four has already expanded to 15, publishing 200 books a year. It is clear that Laura has already achieved a great deal as an all-rounder in publishing, and has a bright and important future.

Miriam Robinson

Miriam impressed the judges with her passion and dedication to bookselling. Her innovative Bookshop Workshop open-source project called upon the industry to look at ways that the bookshop can survive in the era of Amazon and eBooks. She was also an integral part of the Charing Cross Road Festival, which turned the negative impact of the Crossrail works on Charing Cross Road’s bookshops into a unique and successful festival. Miriam’s demonstrated the desire, intelligence and creativity to take her passion and create successful projects and campaigns that elevate the entire book trade and support readers.

The winner of this year’s prize will be announced on the 15^th of May at an event at the Free Word centre. There are a limited number of tickets so keep an eye out for when they are released and finally good luck to the four shortlisted nominees and thank you to all of those who applied.

Andrew Turner