Board of Management

Dr Per Henningsgaard is a Senior Lecturer at Curtin University, where he is also the Major Coordinator of the Professional Writing and Publishing major. At Curtin, he recently founded Elephant Page Publishing, which is a publishing house that is powered by students and guided by a team of publishing professionals with a mission to uplift new voices and talents on both sides of the publishing process. He has previously held permanent teaching positions in the master’s degree in Book Publishing at Portland State University and the English Department at University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point. Per is a Fulbright Scholar who received his PhD from the Department of English and Cultural Studies at The University of Western Australia, and his research interests include editing, publishing and Australian literature. He has published more than twenty refereed articles and chapters across six countries. In addition to his work as an academic, he has worked as an in-house editor for a multinational publishing house in New York City, and as the director of two small, independent publishing houses in the states of Wisconsin and Oregon. He continues to practice as a freelance editor in Perth (Boorloo), Western Australia.

Karen Herbert is the author of the crime novels The River Mouth, The Castaways of Harewood Hall, and Vertigo, all published through Fremantle Press. The River Mouth is currently under option for film and television. She has been a writer in residence at Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre and All Saints College in Perth, and is the convenor of the long-running Book Length Project Group at the Fellowship of Australian Writers WA.
Karen holds a Master of Science in Applied Psychology, is a graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Deputy Chair of Writing WA and a Board Member of The Literature Centre. Her fourth book, The Ghost Walk, will be released in August 2025.

Shey Marque is an award-winning writer of poetry and short fiction from WA. Shey is a former Coordinator and Board Member of The Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre, the Coordinator of Hospital Poets Australia, and current member of the WA Poets Inc Committee. She was the inaugural winner of the Queensland Poetry Festival Emerging Older Poet Award 2018, and her prose poetry series won the Blue Nib Chapbook Award (Chaffinch Press, Dublin 2020). Keeper of the Ritual (UWA Publishing 2019), her first full poetry collection, was shortlisted for the Noel Rowe Poetry Manuscript Award (Vagabond Press 2017). Other collections include the chapbook, Aporiac (Finishing Line Press, USA 2016). Shey’s poetry has twice won the Karen W Treanor Poetry Prize (2013, 2014), and many other poems have been shortlisted and placed in national and international competitions including the Tom Collins Poetry Prize, the Ros Spencer Poetry Prize, Poetry d’Amour, PCWC Poetry Prize, Melbourne Poets Union International Poetry Prize, and the Australian Catholic University Poetry Prize. Shey also has a special interest in flash and micro fiction which have been shortlisted and placed in the Fish Flash Fiction Award, the Bath Flash Fiction Award, and selected for film production as part of the Microflix Short Film Festival. Beyond writing, Shey’s career as a scientist spanned many years in clinical and research facilities within Australia and New Zealand. She holds a BAppSc(Hons) Medical Science (Curtin University), PhD Molecular Pathology (University of WA), and MA Writing (Swinburne University, Melbourne).

With over 25 years of experience, Anne Fairbanks has held finance and accounting roles across various industries, from large corporations to SMEs. Anne has worked in the not-for-profit sector since 2015 and has undertaken volunteer board roles.
Anne holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and Business Law from Curtin University and is a member of the Institute of Public Accountants. She has also completed the Diploma in Applied Governance and Risk Management from The Governance Institute.
Anne is passionate about supporting good financial and governance practices in the not-for-profit sector to build sustainable organisations for the benefit of current and future generations.

Alison is an experienced copyright lawyer and an active member of the WA writing community.
She currently works as the National Copyright Manager for the NSW Department of Education, providing copyright advice and support to schools and TAFEs nationally.
She has a longstanding interest in the arts, with previous roles at Condé Nast Publications in New York, Becker Entertainment, Sydney Festival and the Arts Law Centre of Australia. She has also worked as the Chief Executive Officer of Autism West (now Spectrum Space).
Alison holds a Master of Laws, specialising in Media, Communications and Information Technology Law, from UNSW.
She writes short fiction and has had works published in anthologies in Australia and overseas.

Rachel is a Nimunburr/Yawuru woman from Broome and the Publisher at Magabala Books. She has worked as Project Editor, Editor, Production Co-ordinator, Marketing Assistant, Sales and Administration Manager. She has worked at her local bookshop and served on the boards of Magabala Books, SPN, APA, WritingWA, Centre for Stories, FNAWN. She has judged various awards and fellowships and contributes to furthering First Nations writing & storytelling in general. She was awarded the WritingWA Literary Lions Medal for outstanding contribution to Western Australia’s literary culture (2020). She is the author of Alfred’s War (2018) and has raised four sons.