About

Pantera Press is a social purpose publisher dedicated to great storytelling and publishing books that matter

Pantera Press sprang to life around the Green family’s kitchen table from a passion to publish great Australian stories that readers across the world would rave about. Founded in 2008, we continue to grow rapidly with a broad focus on championing writing culture by investing in the next generation of both readers and writers.

Our mission is to spark imagination, conversation and change. We do this by:

Actively investing in the next generation of Australian writers
Publishing books that matter
Funding charities and not-for-profit programs working to close the literacy gap – because we believe that literacy is the first step to changing the world, and this informs everything we do.

We call this integrated approach to combining social good and business Good Books Doing Good Things^TM. Most recently, we’ve partnered with the Story Factory to expand the reach of their free creative writing and storytelling workshops for young people from marginalised backgrounds.

Since 2008, the Pantera Press family, including the Pantera Press Foundation have contributed over $2.47MM towards the next generation of writers, readers and leaders. 79% of our contributions have been directed to programs working to close the literacy gap or to counter socio-economic disadvantage. That includes $70,000 to help build 7 new Let’s Read Centres around Australia with The Smith Family, over $50,000 to Misfit Aid to run a national surf/sun/read summer reading promotion, $150,000 to Story Factory to open their new centre in Western Sydney, and most recently another $50,000 in 2020 to ensure their ongoing success post COVID.

Over $360,000 of our funds have supported Writers Festivals, including regional festivals all over Australia and most recently the FBi SMAC award-winning Writing NSW Boundless Festival. We have also donated over $1,000,000 in books to those in need, working with partners such as: Mission Australia, The Footpath Library, Arterie – The Chris O’Brien Lifehouse Program, National Youth Centres and more.

In 2016, Director Marty Green launched our new imprint, Lost the Plot. Designed to push the envelope and serve the new millennial generation with beautiful and entertaining content and concepts to inspire and help them save the world.

Today Pantera Press is the leading social purpose publisher globally and is a recognised Heatseeker by Nielsen Bookscan 5 years in a row (leading independent publishers showing both short-term and long-term growth). We were shortlisted in 2013, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 for the Australian Book Industry’s Small Publisher of the Year Award. Pantera Press was also shortlisted for the ABIA Innovation Award and Small Publisher Adult Book of the Year Award in 2015 and 2016, and named winner of the ABIA Small Publisher Children’s Book of the Year Award 2019.

Our dedicated team are passionate about great storytelling and focused on building the brands of exceptional fiction and non-fiction authors. We have a unique approach to the so-called ‘slush pile’ of Australian unsolicited manuscripts. To us, this is a valuable resource – an underexplored diamond mine – and we actively encourage submissions. Our submission guidelines can be found here.

Core Values

About Our Team
Pantera Press Foundation

Ali Green - CEO & Co-Founder

Social entrepreneur Alison is the visionary and force behind Pantera Press.

Green is 2019 Australian Business News Sydney Young Entrepreneur of the Year (Media/PR) and was named one of Australia’s 100 Most Influential Women by Westpac and the Australian Financial Review for exemplifying, through Pantera Press, the trend towards integrating business and social good. Ali is a Harvard Business School Alumna and sits on a number of industry committees and boards including Writing NSW (Director) and the Pantera Press Foundation (Director). She was also chosen as one of the top 20 young leaders in philanthropy in 2013 and again in 2015 for Philanthropy Australia’s study tours to USA, and UK/EU.

Lucy Barrett - Chief Operating Officer

Lucy has been in publishing for 17 years and has previously had roles at Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House and most recently as Sales Director of Bloomsbury Australia. During this time she has worked on brands including Harry Potter, Sarah J Maas, Elizabeth Gilbert and multiple Booker Prize winners.

John M. Green - Chairman and Author

After a 30 year career in law and investment banking, John became a company director and acclaimed novelist. John is a board member of several listed companies and government bodies, and has been a University Press director, prior to Pantera Press. John is co-founder and Chairman of Pantera Press and also sits on the foundation board.

Marty Green - Director and Publisher

Martin works at the intersection of social purpose business and social purpose book publishing, publishing books with an impact focus – primarily under the Lost the Plot imprint – and as a director of Pantera Press and the Pantera Press Foundation, with the aim of maximising and promoting social good.

Jenny Green - Accounts Manager and Director

Jenny has a background in computer science and investment management. After a successful 25-year career in IT consulting, Jenny became an award-winning professional sculptor. Jenny wrote her first book in the early 80s and is co-founder of Pantera Press. She sits on the board and foundation board.

Lex Hirst - Publishing Director

Lex joined Pantera Press in 2018 after commissioning and editing at Penguin Random House. A former co-director of the National Young Writers’ Festival, curator of Junkee Media’s Junket Conference and SAMAG (Sydney Arts Management Advisory Group) committee member, she was named an Australian Book Industry Rising Star in 2017. Lex is passionate about finding exciting new voices, strong storytelling and books with big cultural conversations at their heart.

Kate Cuthbert - Editorial Director

Kate Cuthbert has worked with writers for almost 20 years, in several different capacities. A genre fiction advocate, she notably launched the Escape imprint for Harlequin Australia, and remains a proud popular fiction enthusiast. Kate holds a PhD in publishing studies and is the co-host of the podcast What Would Danbury Do?.

Kajal Narayan - Head of Marketing

Kajal started her publishing career at Rockpool Publishing and joined Pantera Press in 2020 after working at HarperCollins for five years, most recently as a Senior Marketing & Communications Executive.

Lauren Draper - Head of Publicity and Communications

Lauren is a marketing and publicity professional with almost ten years experience in publishing. She has worked on everything from bespoke local campaigns to international blockbusters. Her most recent work experience includes University of Queensland Press and Hardie Grant Kids.

Katherine Hassett - Publisher

Kathy has been in publishing for 13 years and brings a wealth of trade publishing experience across a variety of commissioning and editorial roles, most recently as Associate Publisher for non-fiction at Harper Collins. Some of the notable authors and brands Kathy has worked on include Mark Manson, Anna Jones, Simon Winchester, Jay Shetty, Dervla McTiernan, Tara Moss, Jessica Detmann and Belinda Alexandra.

Tom Langshaw - Publisher

Tom has worked in trade publishing for nearly a decade. Before starting at Pantera Press in early 2021 he held roles as a senior editor and audio producer at Penguin Random House, where he worked with a range of authors, genres and formats.

Lucy Bell - Managing Editor

Lucy has a Master of Publishing degree and started at Pantera Press in 2014. Since then, Lucy has been integral to the development of our editorial department and has worked with numerous award-winning and bestselling authors. Lucy is also the author of popular kids’ book You Can Change the World.

Katy McEwen - Rights Manager

Katy has had a long career in publishing both in the UK and Australia. After starting out at Penguin UK she moved to Australia and in 2006 joined Allen & Unwin’s rights department. She became rights manager at Pantera Press in 2014. Katy is also the author of Oldies’ Guide to the Millennial World.

Kirsty van der Veer - Editor and Production Coordinator

With over 7 years’ experience in retail as a bookseller, Kirsty made the move to publishing at the start of 2019 after finishing her Creative Arts degree.

Elly Clapin - Designer

Elly has worked in publishing for over 6 years, and joined Pantera Press as a social media and digital marketing expert before discovering her love for graphic design. She now works as our dedicated in-house graphic designer and book designer.

Melissa Snook - Marketing and Publicity Coordinator

With a Master of Publishing degree from The University of Sydney, Melissa started working at Pantera Press in 2021. Melissa previously worked on the Sydney University Anthology for three years, publishing collections on topics including: climate change, diversity and networks, and working with authors such as Dr Karl Kruszelnicki and Larissa Behrendt.

LinLi Wan - Project Editor

LinLi Wan was previously a literary agent’s assistant at Alex Adsett Literary, a bookseller at Dymocks and a fiction editor at Voiceworks. She has also interned at The Suburban Review, Brisbane Writers Festival, AustLit, UCL Press and Corella Press. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts/Law (Honours) from the University of Queensland in 2021 and is currently pursuing a Masters of Writing, Editing and Publishing.

Kaitlyn Smith - Royalties and Finance Administrator

Kaitlyn has worked in publishing for almost a decade across multiple fields and publishers. With her range of experience through contracts, royalties, and finance she joined the Pantera Press team as royalties and finance administrator mid 2023.

Pantera Press is a social purpose business championing Australian writing culture. Not only do we nurture great Australian storytellers, but we use a percentage of our revenue to invest in charities and not for profits that encourage reading and help to close the literacy gap.

Additionally we spend a lot of time supporting and promoting writing development programs such as major and regional writers festivals, including:

Below is a little about the organisations we support, and how you can help:

Sydney Story Factory

Sydney Story Factory (SSF) has announced it will open a brand new creative writing centre for young people in Parramatta in May 2018, with the support of Pantera Press as a foundational partner.

SSF specialises in building the writing skills and confidence of marginalised young people aged 7 to 17, particularly those who are Indigenous or from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Since 2012, SSF has worked with more than 9,000 children and teenagers all over NSW. In 2016, 25% of students were from Western Sydney.

Let's Read

A wonderful initiative of the Centre for Community Child Health, Let’s Read is being implemented across Australia, including in Indigenous communities, in partnership with The Smith Family. Click here to read The Smith Family’s announcement of its partnership with Pantera Press. Together we have built 14 new Let’s Read communities around Australia, with at least 1 in every state.

The Footpath Library

In December 2016, Pantera Press partnered with several incredible Australia organisations to donate a Christmas gift, a book, to 11,000 Australians. Australians who might be without family, without a home, or have found themselves in a situation of disadvantage.

The Footpath Library gives away free (mostly new) books to homeless people through libraries they have installed in shelters and refuges in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth. They also operate several mobile services, taking food for the mind directly to the streets. CEO Sarah Garnett comments “For our clients, books are an opportunity to escape into a great story, learn something new, or simply escape from an often miserable day to day reality”.

Mission Australia

A book is a wondrous gift. It is a present filled with friendship, new worlds, hope, and escape… not to mention great storytelling from well-loved Australian authors!

Mission Australia is a non-denominational Christian community service organisation that has been helping people to regain their independence for over 155 years. Pantera Press has donated books for gifts, as well as to build libraries, at 25 Mission Australia centres around Australia.

Misfit Aid

In 2013, we partnered with a unique charity run by surfers, Misfit Aid. Our campaign set out to raise awareness for their volunteer work, for beach safety and to encourage surfers and beach lovers to ‘take a book to the beach’. We teamed up with Sydney’s No.1 FM radio station, Triple M, and sponsored Misfit Aid’s Tommy Herschell’s twice-daily Surf Reports plus a host of community service spots promoting Misfit Aid.

Chris O'Brien Lifehouse

In December 2016, Pantera Press partnered with several incredible Australia organisations to donate a Christmas gift, a book, to 11,000 Australians in need.

Arterie is an innovative inter-disciplinary model of art in healthcare practice, specifically designed to improve outcomes for Chris O’Brien Lifehouse patients, families, carers and staff by easing the side effects of cancer and its treatment such as stress, pain, fatigue, isolation and depression.

NSWWC Boundless Festival

Pantera Press was proud to partner with the NSW Writers’ Centre and Bankstown Arts Centre to present Boundless, the first-ever festival focused on Indigenous and culturally diverse Australian writers and writing.