Five Islands Press

Five Islands Press was founded in 1986 by Ron Pretty, who published over 230 books by Australian poets before retiring in 2007.

A new chapter in the history of FIP began in 2007 when Robyn Rowland initiated a new publishing team together with Lyn Hatherly (who had been working closely with Ron Pretty since 2003), Kevin Brophy and Dan Disney. Robyn left the Press in 2008. From 2007 until 2019, the Press published a further 44 books by emerging and established poets. After an intense but short battle with cancer, Lyn died in March 2016. In her time with the new incarnation of the Press she worked on the expansion into e-books, the establishment of a new design for the Press, a new distribution partnership, and the recruitment of new editors.

The Press published its last titles with Kevin Brophy, Eddie Paterson, Katial Ariel and Bella Li as managing co-editors in 2019. Past editors for the Press include Robyn Rowland, Dan Disney, Susan Fealy, Sandy Fitts, Michael McKay, Jenna Shaw, Ella Holcombe and Lucy Holt. From 2007 to 2020 the design of books was in the expert hands of Libby Austen. Five Islands Press became an imprint of Apothecary Archive, managed by Five Islands poet Gareth Sion Jenkins, in 2020. Under his custodianship, the press concentrated on producing reprints of out-of-print Five Islands books, publishing occasional new books and documenting the long history of the press.

In October 2023, Dr Jenkins agreed to transfer the imprint to Oystercatcher Enterprises Ltd, a not-for-profit company established by multi-award-winning poet and educator, Dr Mark Tredinnick OAM, and Wollongong-based poet Steve Meyrick. Oystercatchers’ intention is to honour the legacy of Ron Pretty by publishing an exciting range of new titles containing poetry that is timeless and timely, intelligent and intelligible, beautiful and urgent; poetry that is both accomplished and accessible to audiences well beyond the poetry specialists who are most of the readers of new poetry at present.

For all inquiries please email: info@5islandspress.com