MidnightSun Publishing is a small Adelaide based press run by Anna Solding, a talented author in her own right. MidnightSun receives hundreds of manuscripts every year, but only publishes 5 to 7 books per annum, including Y.A and children’s books. This year ‘Beneath the Mother Tree’ is the only adult book in their new releases. Solding’s selectiveness has paid off, because MidnightSun’s books have been shortlisted for the Varuna Manuscript Awards, the Penguin/Varuna Scholarship, the Unpublished Manuscript Award at the Adelaide Festival, the Most Underrated Book Award, the CBCA Award and the Adelaide Festival Awards. Their books have been longlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize and the Dobbie Award. Their books have been selected for the One Book One Burnside promotion, the Honour Book in the CBCA Awards, for Queensland Reads and one of their short story collections won the Saboteur Award for best short story collection. I decided to sign with MidnightSun after being impressed by the quality of the books they are producing and the fact that they work with a major distributor. Solding says – ‘We often publish books that bigger publishers would find difficult to market…because they fall between genres’, which is exactly where my book, ‘Beneath the Mother Tree’ sits. Thank God for the small publishing houses in this country, like MidnightSun, who are brave enough to take risks on unusual books written by first time unknown authors. All hail the small press!
