The Scribe team is honoured to publish books by an incredible community of writers, from many different fields and walks of life. To celebrate the company’s 50th-anniversary milestone, we asked some of them to share their reflections on being published by us.
Enjoy Scribe’s author testimonials below.
‘Scribe is family. It's always thrilling to meet other Scribe authors because we know how special it is to be part of such a passionate, caring, independent publishing house. I'm so proud to have found a home on their beautiful list, working with the amazing Scribe team to connect with readers. Happy 50th, Scribe!’
—Laura Jean McKay
‘It has been a rewarding experience being published by Scribe. Henry and his team have always provided first-class editors and publishing advice, together with skilful marketing and publicity — delivered with a friendly touch. As a small, independent house committed to tackling important issues, Scribe plays a crucial role in Australian book publishing. Long may it flourish.’
—Michael Visontay
‘Happy 50 years, Scribe! You've now published two of my novels and each time has been a wonderful experience, from edits to the beautiful final results. Marika is a dream editor, and you can feel the passion of everyone in the Scribe team for the books they publish, from the designers to publicity, sales, and all the many hands it takes. It's a rare and special thing and I couldn't be happier to call Scribe home. Onwards and upwards, here's to another 50, and thank you.’
—Miranda Darling
‘So many congratulations, Henry Rosenbloom, on an extraordinary achievement. Firstly, for having the courage to strike out as an independent publisher, then to be able to remain in business, still as an independent for 50 years, through recessions, financial crises, political turbulence, and numerous wars.
There are so many Australian booksellers, authors, and readers who owe Henry big time. He has — again with considerable courage and trademark enthusiasm — given so many writers a voice and enabled tens of thousands of Australians to acquaint themselves with their own histories and stories.
Without Henry I would have been living in the twilight zone for the past 19 years. I had been out of work for two years. Nobody would give me a job after the defeat of the Howard Government. I wrote two chapters of So Greek, showed them to a man from Hachette who said thanks but no thanks, then sent them to MUP. A young woman there said sorry, not their thing, so when I asked whose thing did she think it might be, she suggested I try Henry Rosenbloom at Scribe.
So I did. I remembered Henry from his days on the staff of then Labor Cabinet Minister, Moss Cass, but lost track of him after 11 November 1975, so cold called him.
The day I rang him in 2009 was the beginning of a beautiful friendship and partnership which I will always treasure, and for which I will always be grateful.
With exceptional tolerance, Henry has edited all five of my books. The staff he has employed over the years to design, market, and promote them have been brilliant, a credit to him and to the industry.’
—Niki Savva
‘Scribe is a bastion of independence in an increasingly risk-averse, conglomerated era of publishing. I wouldn't be the author I am today if my editor, Marika, hadn’t taken a chance on my first short story collection back in 2016. Ten years on, I’m proud to be publishing my fifth book with Scribe, and grateful for all the incredible local and international authors they've introduced me to over the years. Here's to many more decades of indie spirit — and books.’
—Laura Elizabeth Woollett
‘Scribe invited me to the southern hemisphere. I had never been to Australia before Scribe took me on. Every single trip has been a unique experience, delightful, interesting, eye-opening. Last time I was there, I went to Sydney Writers’ Festival, and one of my readers suggested that I write a story about cursed kangaroos. I think this is a brilliant idea and am seriously considering it. I love Scribe. Congratulations on your 50th anniversary. May you thrive for at least 500 more.’
—Bora Chung
‘Many beautiful books in my bookshelf have the name Scribe, capitalised in elegant font, on the base of the spine. Scribe books respect their readers. And as an author, I have seen how these books are made with integrity, attention, and deep engagement, at every stage of the process. More than ever, we need truly independent publishing; people who take time and care and have an eye for posterity, in an industry so often preoccupied with immediacy. I’m proud to be published by such a publisher and send many congratulations to Scribe on 50 years of championing Australian and international writing.’
—Kylie Mirmohamadi
‘Congratulations on reaching 50. I doubt you would have imagined way back then that you'd be publishing photography books. Thanks for taking the punt on my work. Four times! Best wishes for the next 50 years.’
—Warren Kirk
‘Being published by Scribe has launched a satisfying and rich career, and has enabled me to marry my expertise in mental health with the joy I find in writing. I've had numerous international and local opportunities afforded by Scribe and love being part of the Scribe stable.’
—Dr. Ahona Guha
‘I feel like a badass to be published by Scribe. Australia is so blessed to have such a trailblazing independent publisher in its midst. Long may it reign.’
—Madeleine Ryan
‘Back in around 2005, I had heard from all major publishers in Australia that short stories were “publishing poison” and that taking on a collection by a single debut author would be “crazy”. Then I got an email from Henry Rosenbloom, (who’d just returned from, I think, the Frankfurt Book Fair, where he’d run into a mutual friend and staunch ally of short stories (and of me), Louise Thurtell). Maybe he was crazy, he wrote, but he’d like to publish my stories. By the time the collection Dark Roots came out in 2006, he’d also managed to sell rights to the US and the UK. I didn’t even have an agent, and told him upfront I had no idea about how to navigate any of this stuff. “Don’t worry,” Henry said. “That’s the part I love to do.”
I was on the Scribe team now. The Scribe bus. It took me to festivals and big events, onto the radio and overseas to other big events where I met other writers and shared publication stories with them. I saw how fortunate I had been to find myself championed by an independent publisher, with a group of dedicated editors and publicists who I’ve remained friends with to this day. A novel followed and then, after a reading at the Adelaide Writers’ Week one year, a collection of poems. Henry, Margot, and the team from Scribe were there at the awards night when that book won the Victorian Premier’s Award for Poetry — a long punt that paid off, an act of faith that felt, in itself, poetic. Another collection of short stories followed, this time one of which was selected for the VCE syllabus and has stayed on it now for eight years, allowing me to meet and talk to thousands of Year 12 and Year 11 students about storytelling and self-expression.
So much of what’s good about the writing and reading life feels relational, to me. Back in 2010, I listened to Mark Rubbo talk about Readings Books, and the first Readings Anthology being published at the time. Mark related some of the good things about his job. One thing he liked, he said, was that every Friday or so he would go next door to Jimmy Watson’s wine bar and sit and talk books with Henry Rosenbloom. I’ve often thought about this little story since, in the rapidly-changing publishing world when relational connections and shared literary passions — like bookshops, book sales and books themselves — seem under existential threat, almost. As everything transforms, morphs, digitises, is outsourced to machines and seems critically endangered, I still comfort myself thinking of two respected and respectful people, one an independent bookseller and the other an independent publisher, at the end of a long week, getting together over a drink. What do they talk about? New books they’re excited about.
Sixteen years have passed — almost as long as it’s been since I’ve published any new work, and the world shifts around us and takes us along with it, and maybe that era feels like a kind of nostalgic golden age, but the golden anniversary, of course, is one that marks 50 years, a span of time that reaffirms my faith in the power of shared vision, stories, connection, inspiration, and change. Happy Golden Anniversary, Scribe, and particularly, I raise my glass in a toast to Henry and Margot Rosenbloom. You are gold.’
—Cate Kennedy
‘Congratulations! What a wonderful achievement. A half-century of producing treasures, books that have enriched our culture, and the world of writing. Scribe published my book My Life as a Jew in October 2023, three days before the Hamas attacks in southern Israel. It was a difficult book to publish given the times in which we lived. Henry took it on almost immediately after I sent him the manuscript. He personally did the editing. I think we worked through seven drafts. I had never been edited so closely and so well, with so much commitment to get the book right. Every fact was checked. Every loose sentence tightened. Henry drove me crazy but without his dedication, a far lesser book would have been published. I am deeply grateful and proud to have been published by Scribe.’
—Michael Gawenda
‘About 30 years ago, when I’d written two books published by other publishers, I was writing a biography of a then little-known Australian soldier, Harold “Pompey” Elliott. I wanted it to be a full-length life-and-times story that would demonstrate what a remarkable identity he was. I managed to reduce my first draft of 300,000 words to 250,000, but I felt that any further reduction would detrimentally result in vivid anecdotal content having to be pruned.
However, getting it published at 250,000 words proved extremely difficult. Numerous publishers insisted they would only publish the book if it did not exceed 200,000. I kept hoping I could find someone who would publish it the way I wanted, but they all said no — this process took years. I was on the verge of concluding that what I wanted could not happen when a friend asked me if I’d approached Henry Rosenbloom at Scribe. I hadn’t, so I did. I was thrilled when Henry responded that he’d publish it at 250,000 words. His verdict was vindicated when the first print run sold out in about six weeks in 2002. Further print runs continued to sell pleasingly, and the book subsequently won multiple awards.
All my books since then have been published by Scribe. All but one have been large books. Some have won major awards. I’m immensely grateful to Henry and Scribe. Across the decades Henry’s consistent commitment to publishing quality books has been very evident. He has displayed editorial rigour while at the same time being always very pleasant and friendly to deal with. It’s no accident that after Henry published my Pompey Elliott biography, all six of my books since have been published by Scribe. Henry at Scribe has been my preferred publisher for a quarter of a century. That says it all really.’
—Ross McMullin
Laura Jean McKay is the author of The Animals in That Country — winner of the prestigious Arthur C Clarke Award, The Victorian Prize for Literature, and the ABIA Small Publishers’ Adult Book of the Year, and co-winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 2021. The French translation, Les Animaux de ce pays, won the 2025 Prix Gargantua. Laura is also the author of Holiday in Cambodia, and her latest collection is Gunflower. She was the 2025 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Fellow in Cork, Ireland, and teaches Creative Writing at Massey University. Laura is based in Meanjin/Brisbane, Australia.
Michael Visontay has worked as a journalist and senior editor at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian, and taught journalism at university. He is the author of several nonfiction books, including Welcome to Wanderland, Who Gave You Permission? (with Manny Waks), and Undies to Equities: the remarkable life of Henri Aram.
Miranda Darling is a writer, poet, and co-founder of Vanishing Pictures. She read English and Modern Languages at Oxford then took a Masters in Strategic Studies and Defence from the ANU (GSSD). She became an adjunct scholar at a public policy think tank, specialising in non-traditional security threats. She has published both fiction and nonfiction.
Niki Savva is a highly acclaimed political writer. She was twice political correspondent for The Australian, and headed up the Canberra bureaus of both The Herald Sun and The Age. When family tragedy forced a career change, she became Peter Costello’s press secretary for six years and was then on John Howard’s staff for three. Her work has brought her into intimate contact with Australia’s major political players for more than 40 years. She is a regular columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, and appears on ABC TV’s Insiders.
Laura Elizabeth Woollett is an author and critic based in Naarm/Melbourne. Her short story collection, The Love of a Bad Man, was published in 2016, followed by the novels Beautiful Revolutionary (2018), The Newcomer (2021), and West Girls (2023). Her works have been listed for numerous awards, including the Stella Prize and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction. In 2025, she was a writer-in-residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. Hell Days is her nonfiction debut.
Bora Chung is a writer of speculative fiction and a translator of contemporary Russian and Polish literature. She has published three full-length novels and four short story collections in Korean. As of 2025, five of her works have been translated by Anton Hur and published in English; the first, Cursed Bunny, was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize and the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature.
Kylie Mirmohamadi is a writer and academic whose work and research spans domestic Australian landscapes, online fan fiction, and 19th-century English literature. She has a PhD in History and is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in English and Creative Writing at La Trobe University. Kylie lives with her family in Melbourne, where she often finds ideas for writing when walking among the tree-lined creeks of her inner-city suburb with her poodle. Her first novel, Diving, Falling, was published in 2024.
Dr Ahona Guha is a clinical and forensic psychologist who works with both victims and perpetrators of abuse. Her first book, Reclaim: understanding complex trauma and those who abuse was published in 2023, and her second, Life Skills for a Broken World was published in 2024. She writes widely for the media on matters related to mental health, health, social justice, and equity. Her work has appeared in The Age, The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Breathe Magazine, SBS, and ABC. You can find out more about her work at www.ahonaguha.com.
Madeleine Ryan is an Australian writer, director, and author. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, SBS, Vogue, The Daily Telegraph, The Sydney Morning Herald, and Vice. She is currently working on the screen adaptation of her first novel, A Room Called Earth. Madeleine lives in rural Victoria.
Michael Gawenda is one of Australia’s best-known journalists and authors. In a career spanning four decades, he was a political reporter, a foreign correspondent based in London and in Washington, a columnist, a feature writer, and a senior editor at Time Magazine. He was editor and editor-in-chief of The Age from 1997 to 2004.Michael Gawenda has won numerous journalism awards, including three Walkley awards. He was the inaugural director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne, and is the author of four books.
Ross McMullin is an award-winning historian, biographer, and storyteller. His books include two multi-biographies: Farewell, Dear People: biographies of Australia’s lost generation, which won national awards, including the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History, and its sequel, Life So Full of Promise, which won The Age Book of the Year Award. His biographies include Pompey Elliott, which also won multiple awards, and Will Dyson: Australia’s radical genius. He assembled Elliott’s extraordinary letters in Pompey Elliott at War: in his own words, and his political histories comprise The Light on the Hill and So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the world’s first national labour government.
