Panel - The Writers Role once their Book is Published. Never busier!

The Writer as Promoter, Marketer, Publicist, Business Manager and more. Examining a writer’s promotional role in selling books. Strategies, skills needed and tools available with Jacquelin Blanchard, Sheridan Stewart and moderator Gillian Wills.

Jacqueline Blanchard is an award-winning book editor with more than 25 years’ experience working collaboratively with Australian writers to develop and refine manuscripts. She has held senior editorial roles at leading publishing houses in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and now leads the editorial team and internship program at UQP. Her work spans adult literary fiction and narrative nonfiction, supporting both emerging and established authors. She has edited books by Matthew Condon, Larissa Behrendt, Ian Kemish and Sally Piper. An alumna of the APA Residential Editorial Program, she received the inaugural Rosanne Fitzgibbon Award and is co-curator of Beyond the Margins: Australian Editors in Conversation, a project that champions the work of book editors.

Sheridan Stewart is an author and radio broadcaster known for her insightful, inspiring, and relatable style. Plus, she brings the fun! A popular former FM presenter (Triple M), music journalist, comedy producer and speaker before joining the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in 2014, Sheridan can be heard on ABC Radio Queensland (Sunshine Coast) when she’s not swimming or writing! Sheridan’s first non-fiction book, I Am Enough – a 90-Day Challenge to Find Contentment, was released in the UK, AUS/NZ and the US in 2023, and her fiction has been published in the Chicago Quarterly Review. 

Gillian Wills writes for ABR, Limelight and InReview and has published with The Australian, Courier Mail, Griffith Review, Artist Profile, ArtsHub and other publications. Gillian is the author of Big Music, a novel set in a music conservatorium which was inspired by her 9-year term as the first female dean of music at the Victorian College of the Arts. Big Music was featured as a notable book in The Australian in 2024 and won the Golden Able Award for Best Fiction in 2025. Her short stories have been published by Hare’s Paw Literary Journal, Dillydoun Review, Bewildering Stories, Underground Writers, The Dewdrop and The Antonym. In 2023, her short story Snake reached the semi-finals of Button Eye Reviews’ Creative Fiction Award. This year a new edition of her memoir Elvis and Me: How a musician and a broken racehorse rescued each other (Hawkeye Publishing) was released on the 1 August. Gillian has held several senior roles in Australia and also overseas, including the role of National Music Officer on the Gulbenkian Funded Arts in Schools Project directed by Sir Ken Robinson. She is an Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music for distinguished services to the music industry.

Discover more about the Eumundi Writers Festival here: https://eumundiwritersfestival.com.au/