I highly recommend Ford Street Publishing when you’re looking for high quality books for children and young adults.

Their mission statement explains that their books explore themes of contemporary relevance. One of their goals is to “provide children and young adults with literary works that explore the significant social issues of our time with intelligence and ingenuity. We see our books as speaking to broad audiences – in Australia and abroad – and not as being ‘issue-bound’ to any marginalised group of which they speak. The quality of our books goes hand-in-hand with building our reputation as a publisher.”

Their mission statement continues: “As well as taking pride in the calibre of our books, we always pay much attention to the design and presentation of our books.

“Our books span beautifully presented picture books for early learners, stimulating titles for the education market, and entertaining and socially conscious books for intermediate readers and young adults. Some of our young adult novels also achieve crossover into adult markets.”

I recommend Ford Street Publishing for their excellence, because director Paul Collins is a friend I’ve known for many years, and because they are publishing a short story of mine in March 2024.

Look out for “Borderlands: Tales from the Edge — a new anthology.” It’s going to be spectacular, with fifty short stories, illustrated by Anne Ryan, and it’s due for release in March 2024.

Isobelle Carmody will write the foreword. Other authors include Bill Condon, David Metzenthen, Kirsty Murray, John Larkin, Justin D’Ath and Simon Higgins.

My contribution is called “The Churchyard Yarrow” and it’s set in a fantasy version of the late 18th century. It is, in fact, a shard of a longer story (another trilogy) – a work in progress.