Queer Publishing Day: Publisher Industry Panel: Building a Queer List in a Straight Industry

Like many creative industries, publishing often feels overwhelmingly straight. To explore the landscape of queer representation in publishing, we’ve brought together a panel of excellent commissioning editors. They’ll discuss the current state of the industry, exploring what changes publishers can make—and what we can push them to do. How is the publishing world responding to rising hostility toward LGBTQ+ groups in the media? And how are editors working to bring more books by marginalized writers into the mainstream? This event will be chaired by literary agent Abi Fellows, a member of The Coast is Queer’s steering group.

Jodie Lancet-Grant is Associate Publisher at Bluebird, part of Pan Macmillan, and the author of bestselling picture books featuring LGBTQ+ representation. Authors on her list at Bluebird include Diva Editor Roxy Bourdillon, award-winning comedian and podcaster Suzi Ruffell and leading campaigner Ellen Jones. Her own books include The Pirate Mums – which made history as the first book featuring a two-mum family to be read as a Cbeebies bedtime story, The Marvellous Doctors for Magical Creatures and The Legend of the Wild West Twins. 

Jack Thomson is an editor and co-publisher at Cipher Press, an independent publishing house amplifying queer and trans writing. 

Hannah Chukwu is a multi-award-winning Publishing Director at Dialogue Books, where she leads the literary team publishing across fiction and non-fiction, with a focus on publishing underrepresented voices. Authors she publishes include bell hooks, Bora Chung and Yoko Tawada. Prior to joining Dialogue, she commissioned at Hamish Hamilton, PRH, where she also edited Five Dials magazine, founded the Black Britain: Writing Back series with Bernardine Evaristo, and was the Policy and Campaign Consultant for the curriculum change project Lit in Colour, in collaboration with the Runnymede Trust. She is a Trustee for the education charity The Brilliant Club.

Ian Henzel is a man who loves challenges. His 42-year career in technology marketing, product management, project management, and quality assurance, spanning Asia and Europe, was just the beginning. After retiring in 2019, he co-founded Rattling Good Yarns Press, LLC, a press that is dedicated to highlighting overlooked LGBTQ+ voices. As a lifelong LGBTQ+ activist, Ian’s mission is to give voice to the community. His podcast, “Bold Voices/Good Yarns,” is a platform that explores how authors’ lives shape their work. He resides in Cathedral City, California, with his husband of 38 years, and at 70, he’s embracing the challenges of his “second life” with Rattling Good Yarns Press, committed to producing quality work and treating people right.

(Chair) Abi Fellows has incredibly broad experience in the industry, having started in bookselling at Blackwell’s in 2001 following her BA in English Literature at Bristol University. After a stint on the sales team of Faber and Faber and a return to education to complete an MA in modernism and postmodernism at University College London, Abi began her agenting career with Georgina Capel Associates in 2004, assisting the primary agents and handling journalism and translation rights for the team. Abi then moved into literary scouting at RR Ltd for seven years, working with overseas publishers and TV and film production companies in the UK. In 2019 she returned to agenting at The Good Literary Agency, building a list focused on amplifying and championing writers from backgrounds that had traditionally been marginalised. In 2023, Abi joined DHH Literary Agency. Abi was shortlisted for Literary Agent of the Year at the British Book Awards (aka the Nibbies) in 2023.

Important: If you have booked a festival or day pass, you still need to register for this event to ensure your space. Follow the book now link and select the Festival or Day Pass Holder Free Registration. No registration means we cannot guarantee you a space for this event.