Fullers Publishing aims to bring quality Tasmanian writing to the world.
The scope of our list ranges from history to photography, recipe books to poetry, local thrillers to architecture, each of which contributes to the narrative of Australia’s only island state. It is our pleasure to work with local writers, artists and historians to continue a proud printed tradition in Tasmania.
TRADE DISTRIBUTION
For all enquiries regarding trade distribution of our titles, please contact publishing@fullersbookshop.com.au
SUBMISSIONS
We are a micro publisher releasing a very select number of Tasmanian books each year. Please note that we are not taking unsolicited manuscripts at this time.
For further information, please contact publishing@fullersbookshop.com.au
HISTORY
Fullers has a long, meandering history of local publishing from the last century. Recently, a customer brought in a copy of what we know to be our earliest printed volume: The Romance of Old St David’s, from 1920!
A full list of all our publications, facsimiles and collections has been printed in The Bookshelf Miscellany No.2 (2020).
AUTHORS
The writers we have worked with showcase the breadth of talent of this small island. Below is a small number of those we have worked with:
David Owen
David Owen is a Hobart-based writer of fiction and non-fiction for all mediums. His 15 published books include literary novels, and the acclaimed Pufferfish detective fiction series set in Tasmania. In 1998, his love story novel Bitters End was adapted as a feature film. David was the story and script consultant for the project.
His popular series of non-fiction books include: Thylacine, the Tragic tale of the Tasmanian Tiger; Shark, in Peril in the Sea; and Tasmanian Devil, a Unique and Threatened Animal.
David edited Island magazine for five years and was the director of publishing for Quintus Publishing at the University of Tasmania. He is now secretary of Government House.
His most recent publication was X and Y, which was the eighth release in the Pufferfish series! Look out for more David Owen later in 2023.
Rees Campbell
Rees Campbell is a Tasmanian by birth and attitude. She has a life-long passionate interest in all Tasmania has to offer in the way of natural environment, including native plants and creatures.
She and her husband Col live in Wynyard, and have developed the property Murnong as a wild food garden, with over 100 species of edible natives growing. Rees promotes the flavours of wild Tasmanian food with a limited product line under the name feisty Tasmanian – head to her blog for updates. Rees believes the future is in the hands of the next generations, and enjoys involving children in appreciating the richness of native plants.
Eat Wild Tasmanian, published by Fullers, was Rees’ fourth book, and was reprinted in 2022 in expanded format as Eat More Wild Tasmanian.
Alison Alexander
Alison was born and bred in Tasmania and has written or edited over 33 (yes, we know!) books, which describe a broad sweep of Tasmania’s history from the legacy of the Clarence Football Club, to the history of South Hobart, to the life of Lady Jane Franklin. Alison has a PhD in Tasmanian history from the University of Tasmania.
The O’Connors of Connorville: A great Australian story was published by Fullers in 2017, while ‘Duck and green peas! For ever!’ Finding Utopia in Tasmania followed in 2018.
Grant Finlay
Grant Finlay has worked in different roles with Tasmanian Aboriginal people since 1995. He has worked with the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people creating private and public ceremonies the express foundational beliefs about life and death, past trauma and future hopes. He has a PhD in Aboriginal Studies from the University of Tasmania. His book, ‘Good people always crackney in heaven’: Mythic conversations in lutruwita/Tasmania, was published by Fullers in 2019 as part of the Studies in the History of Aboriginal Tasmania series.
Michael Powell
Michael Powell was an Adjunct Researcher at the University of Tasmania specialising in 19th and 20th century Australian history, Aboriginal history, the 19th century colonial history of Ceylon, and in the broad field of philosophy and religious studies. He worked as a principal of a special school dealing with children with behavioural difficulties, as a ministerial aid in the Hawke government and a university lecturer in history. Michael passed away in 2023.
Fullers published his book, Musquito: Brutality and Exile, in 2016. Musquito was an aborigine who was active in the resistance to white settlement in NSW and was exiled to Norfolk Island in 1813. He was responsible for organising the Tasmanians against white settlement and was hanged for his part of the murders that happened at Grindstone Bay in 1825.
“Was Musquito a catalyst, an accident or a part of a conjunction triggering the Black War in Van Diemen’s Land?… Why are ‘culturally in-between’ people like Musquito particularly potent leaders in warrior resistance?”
Patsy Cameron
As Professor Henry Reynolds writes in his introduction to her first book, Grease and Ochre, Patsy Cameron “has been a leading figure in that generation of young Aborigines who startled a complacent community with the demand for recognition and respect as indigenous people.” She has brought a lifetime of experiences to her academic work, from her childhood growing up on Flinders Island, to a working life of service to the Tasmanian Aboriginal communities, and her later career as a research scholar, exploring the lives of her ancestors and her ancestral country.
Patsy has a Bachelor of Arts in Archaeology and Geography, and a Master of Art in History. She was inducted onto the Tasmanian Honour Roll of Women in 2006.
Fullers first published Grease and Ochre in 2011, and it was reprinted in 2016, remaining a perennial seller in the years since.
“In the early years of the nineteenth century, a small number of European men moved from the river towns of northern Tasmania onto the small islands of Eastern Bass Strait. Taking Tasmanian Aboriginal women as their wives, the Straitsmen set up small-island homes on what became the colonial sea frontier. There have been many interpretations of the result of this blending of two cultures. Did it spell the demise of some of the clans, or, conversely, did it ensure the survival of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people?”
Graeme Calder
Dr Graeme Calder is an honorary associate in the School of History and Classics, University of Tasmania. His scholarship has been recognised internationally and it is a testament to the vibrant story that is the history of Tasmania.
His book, Levee, Line and Martial Law, was inspired by his PhD thesis, and his interest in the prehistory of Australia, and particularly, that of Van Diemen’s Land. The book forms part of a series on the Aboriginal peoples of Tasmania, the first of which was published by Fullers in 2008, edited by Henry Reynolds. As Professor Reynolds says in the introduction, ‘Calder in Levee, Line and Martial Law represents the most significant new phase in Tasmanian Aboriginal history.’ Dr Calder traces the history the Mairremmener people from prehistory, through the arrival of white people on to their organised resistance against the invaders of their land and their eventual capitulation.
Kevin Kiernan
Kevin has spent much of his professional life as a geomorphologist documenting the geodiversity of the Tasmanian landscape, including many years working inside the Tasmanian forest industry, to better inform government decisions.
Eroding the Edges of Nature, published in 2018, traces the troubled history of the Mount Field National Park and the adjoining Florentine Valley. In doing so it charts the beginning and ongoing history of the conservation movement, significant not just for Australia but also on the world stage.
Marcus Nichols
“Saturday, April 7, 1979. Bellerive Oval.
I was standing with my dad, next to the boundary fence, not far from the old scoreboard, river end, somewhere between a Holden Kingswood and Datsun 180B, looking into the sun. I was seven and a half years old.”
So begins Marcus Nichols’ celebration of the 1979 TFL season, published by Fullers in 2019: When Local Footy Mattered: Remembering the 1979 TFL Centenary Season.
“With the 40th anniversary of one of the state’s greatest football grand finals ever played approaching, I thought it was a good time to retell the story of the 1979 TFL Centenary season and acknowledge the players, coaches and umpires who featured.”
Roy & Clodagh Jones
Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, Roy Harden Jones used his intellect, his analytical strengths and his sense of humour to chronicle the ups and downs of living with dementia. Roy’s skill as a writer allows readers to see the world through his eyes, and in this way he is able to advocate for others without communication skills. He was supported every step of the way by his wife and carer Clodagh, who has added her own insights. If you have a friend or family member taking the same journey, this book, Living with Dementia, will open a window into their world. You may shed a tear with Roy and Clodagh – but you will laugh with them as well.
Steven Walker
Not many authors have a career path that takes them from fighter jets to stage-coaches. After an Australian defence force career when he started as an F111 pilot and moved through a succession of strategic command roles, Steven Walker decided to turn his hand to restoring his c1833 home in Oatlands.
Pictured on the cover of Enterprise, risk and ruin: The stage-coach and the development of Van Diemen’s land and Tasmania, the former Lake Frederick Inn served as a coaching inn during the heyday of stage-coaching in Tasmania. Steven’s book is the result of his research into the history of the Inn, which blossomed in an extensive examination of the history of stage-coaches on the island. On the way, his rigorous analysis included the award of a PhD from the University of Tasmania. Fullers was proud to publish his book in 2016.
Marian Jameson
Marian was the librarian of the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts – an outstanding collection of rare books, fine and decorative arts from Tasmania – for more than sixteen years until her retirement in 2011. Her book, Miss Lily, published by Fullers in 2018, is a detailed portrait of the artist Curzona ‘Lily’ Allport, drawing on extensive research to create a picture of the artist and give her a well-deserved place in the record of Tasmanian and Australian artistic endeavour.
Suzanne Smythe
Residents of Hobart love walking through the tall trees of Knocklofty Reserve, visiting the Frog Ponds, spotting mopokes and wallabies, and admiring the wattle trees in bloom. But there’s a lot more to Knocklofty than its natural beauty.
Suzanne Smythe has drawn on newspapers of the day to compile a lively history filled with famous and infamous people and places. She points out the traces in today’s landscape of buildings and industries long gone in Knocklofty: Hobart’s backyard.
Brett Martin
Brett Martin was born in Devonport, Tasmania, in 1952, grew up on the Gold Coast and lived in Hobart, Canberra, Wagga Wagga and Launceston. His working life was as a labourer and a librarian. Brett passed away in 2017.
He published Marion with Fullers in 2016 – it is a novel about Marion Oak Sticht and her tragic life on the west coast of Tasmania after her husband Robert Sticht had established himself as a genius metallurgist and then lost his fortune on a bad investment.
Graeme Hetherington
Born in 1937, Graeme Hetherington spent his first thirteen years on the West Coast of Tasmania and then went to boarding school in Launceston for the remainder of his schooling. A graduate from the University of Tasmania, he taught in the Classics Department there for a quarter of a century. Retiring in 1986, he lived in various parts of Europe for over twenty years until his return to Tasmania in 2013. Fullers published his fifth book of poetry, A Post-Colonial Boy (Facing the Music), in 2017.