About

Upswell Publishing accepted the invitation in the Uluru Statement from the Heart to walk together for a better future. Voting YES in the forthcoming referendum was an affirmation of a commitment for all Australians to address the injustice of our history for First Nations people today by making formal an overdue recognition. This solidarity is forward-directed and meaningful, as serious as our lives, and despite the final result in 2023 solidarity remains intact for many of us.

Upswell operates in the city of Perth, on ancient country of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation who remain the spiritual and cultural custodians of this beautiful land. We acknowledge their continuing connection to country and express gratitude to elders past and present for their strength and creativity…Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land.

About Upswell

In mid-2021, I launched a small imprint, Upswell, to continue my adventures in publishing. All of my working life has been arranged around books and ideas: as a bookseller, writer, publisher and organiser of public events involving literature and writing. After 14 years of shaping a list as publisher at UWA Publishing, I am delighted to be building this new venture of Upswell.

The principles remained in how I started to build Upswell’s list of books that speak to each other across a set of intellectual interests. I’m publishing a small number of distinctive books each year in, broadly, the areas of narrative nonfiction, fiction and poetry. I am interested in books that elude easy categorising and work somewhat against the grain of current trends. They are books that may have trouble finding a home in the contemporary Australian publishing sector.

From my beginnings as a bookseller in my twenties, I’ve thought about books that last, in a cultural sense, for 20 to 50 years or more, whether they remain in print or not: books that have been noticed and noted for their originality. I have been delighted with the many recent shortlistings in major awards for the last books I published at UWAP, and am thrilled and hugely enthusiastic about this new venture and the opportunity to continue to make books of substance.

I have entered into an agreement with Black Inc Books for Upswell to be distributed within their list by Penguin Random House, and it is lovely to have such generous and savvy colleagues and supporters. Upswell will be a not-for-profit company. The three directors of Upswell are Dr. Carmen Lawrence, Linda Savage and myself.

Wholesale queries for retailers without an account with UBD are welcomed. Send an email to books@upswellpublishing.com

About Terri-ann White

Terri-ann White was Director and Publisher at UWA Publishing from 2006 until June 2020 and in that time published around 450 books: fiction, poetry, narrative non-fiction, scholarly, and art and natural science monographs. Prior to this, she founded and directed a cross-disciplinary research centre at UWA, taught literature and writing in universities, was a bookseller for 16 years, and organised ‘ideas’ festivals.

Terri-ann is also a writer of fiction and non-fiction, and a serious enthusiast of dance and music and visual arts as well as literature that extends boundaries of how stories are told and language is worked.

SUBMISSIONS

NEXT PITCH FRIDAY 20 MARCH 2026

This is the drill: once a year I open for submissions to Upswell.

Greetings, writers. It is useful to have a good look at the list I am building and perhaps even read one of my Upswell books before entering into this field of pitching to me. Personally, I don’t gain much from that current marketing tool of comparative titles (and a comparison needs to be read before it is declared).

I can only manage this exercise once a year. I am a one-person band at Upswell, my eyesight is fading and my brain overheated just thinking about this.My next single open pitch session, following all of the guidelines below, will occur on Friday 20 March 2026 between 9am and 12 noon in your time zone.

You are invited to send the following:

1. a page (A4 limit) describing your manuscript and why it fits into the rationale for Upswell Publishing. I am building a fiction, poetry and narrative non-fiction list. Your work must fit my list and that is easily understood by looking at this website and all of its writings and declarations, as well as the descriptions of Upswell books. (I am not interested in genre fiction or commercial novels but as well I am not seeing very much fiction that interests me. Since mid-2023 I have turned my sight and attention to writing in the broad field of narrative nonfiction (essays, memoir, lyric essays, hybrid writing) and have had more success within these forms than in the novels I have published to date.

Make this page dynamic and a direct communication with me to persuade and excite my interest.

2. Tell me a bit about you and what you have written and published until now. (maximum 1 A4 page)

3. Send me a sample of 15 pages from the manuscript you are pitching (one manuscript only). Your best pages–perhaps the start; perhaps the end, or something in the middle.I’ll read everything that comes in on that day and respond with a simple, and polite, NO or YES.

Pitches to: books@upswellpublishing.com

With thanks, Terri-ann