Book People: An Interview with Jenny Hellen

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Hannah Marshall speaks with Jenny Hellen about her role as Publisher at Large at Allen & Unwin New Zealand and the state of children’s publishing in Aotearoa right now.

If you’ve ever heard of Allen & Unwin New Zealand, then you’ve probably heard of Jenny Hellen. Up until mid-2024 she was A&U’s Publishing Director, and she now holds the enigmatic title of Publisher at Large. A&U are actively expanding their children’s and young adult range, having taken over sponsorship from Walker Books of the Storylines Tessa Duder Award, and they’ve got a huge number of kidlit books in their pipeline—including mine. In this interview, Jenny tells me more about A&U’s direction, her reckons on the current state of children’s publishing in Aotearoa, and what ‘Publisher at Large’ actually means.

Hannah Marshall: Can you introduce yourself and explain what your role at Allen & Unwin is? 

Jenny Hellen: My title is Publisher at Large, which some people find confusing or amusing. This title is used in publishing and media to describe someone who is in a senior role but who is no longer a manager and who now concentrates on publishing. I took on this new role in mid-2024. Previously I was Publishing Director and published primarily adult non-fiction titles like memoirs, cookbooks and lifestyle books, and now Michelle Hurley is our Publishing Director and she’s doing a brilliant job. I dropped my hours to work three days a week, and I am building up a local children’s list for Allen & Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand, plus still publishing a few of my established authors who are adult non-fiction writers. I joke that my new title means I do what I want, but that’s not true! However, it’s a wonderful job, and I am thoroughly enjoying working with children’s writers and illustrators to create some terrific new children’s books.

HM: How did you get into the publishing industry, and what led you to children’s publishing specifically?

JH: I fell into publishing really. I had a few different jobs in my twenties after doing a double major in Māori prehistory and English – I worked as an archaeologist and site surveyor, in freelance journalism, as a proofreader at the NZ Herald and as a high school English teacher, not to forget stints as a barmaid (in the UK) and a cleaner! In my thirties I was living in Melbourne, had very young children and I studied part-time for a diploma in Professional Writing & Editing at a TAFE [Technical and Further Education provider]. Part-way through this course I met someone who worked in educational publishing and I got work as a freelance editor because I had a teaching background. There are lots of educational publishers in Melbourne and my work there proved to be excellent training for trade publishing too. I worked on all kinds of educational books, from early readers through to secondary and tertiary textbooks. 

When I returned home to NZ, I met Jane Connor who had just been appointed Publisher at Random House NZ. She had previously had her own small, very successful publishing company, Godwit (still a high-end imprint at Penguin Random House New Zealand to this day), and she needed people to help her establish her list. So I joined Random House New Zealand and worked there for 15 years, mostly publishing adult non-fiction. I also published a handful of children’s titles every year and had the great pleasure of  working with some absolute stars of NZ children’s book publishing, like David Elliot, Gavin Bishop, Rachael King, Fleur Beale and Mandy Hager, among others. I’ve always loved children’s books and read them avidly with my own children—from great picture books through middle fiction and YA fiction. Some of my favourites from that time are the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman and any of Margaret Mahy’s books—picture books and also teen novels like The Changeover and The Haunting. Over the ten years I’ve been at Allen & Unwin I’ve published some children’s books, including working with the incredibly talented Mat Tait on his books Adventures of Tupaia and Te Wehenga, which won the Book of the Year at the Children’s Book Awards in 2023. 

HM: What’s your favourite part of the job?

JH: I love almost everything about being a publisher, it suits me down to the ground. I have really wide-ranging interests, so working with books enables me to be immersed in a particular topic or manuscript for a limited time period. I could never have been an academic, focusing solely on one area of interest, as that would be very boring to me. It’s a very creative role and also an entrepreneurial one—it’s the combination of art and commerce. The thing I love the most about my job, though, is working with writers and illustrators to help them create the very best book we can and to help them position it in the best possible way, making sure each book is the best it can be, has a strong cover and is getting active marketing. I’m constantly astounded by the wealth of talent we have here in Aotearoa, new incredible writers and illustrators popping up all the time. It’s exciting.

They have to fight hard in the crowded children’s book market, so they need to be top of the range.

HM: What’s the most challenging part of the job?

JH: Financially our books have to make enough money to ensure we can pay the bills and pay everyone a salary. As a trade publisher, we don’t usually receive grants from Creative NZ or have a university propping us up, so we have to be very savvy about what we publish. I hate rejecting manuscripts but the reality is we can only publish a limited number of books, and we need to choose wisely.

HM: What drives your commissioning decisions?

JH: As I’m in the process of building up a children’s list, I am trying to publish into every area of children’s books—picture books, illustrated middle-grade fiction, non-illustrated middle-grade fiction, YA and non-fiction. And we’re trying to choose manuscripts that are excellent. They have to fight hard in the crowded children’s book market, so they need to be top of the range. We feel honoured to be publishing established writers of the calibre of Rachael King, Rachael Craw and Elizabeth Knox, and to be supporting new writers like you, Hannah, and Claire Mabey, Shelley Burne-Field and Kiri Lightfoot. We want to bring on new voices. I’ve invited some writers of adult fiction and non-fiction to try their hand at writing for children and Tim Saunders has delighted us with his bouncy The Tractor has a Wobbly Wheel with super-cute illustrations by Carla Martell. We have lots of exciting new books coming out later this year and next.

HM: Why have you decided to expand Allen & Unwin’s children’s list? In other words, why are children’s books important?

JH: I want to acknowledge Melanie Laville Moore, our New Zealand Managing Director, and Robert Gorman, the CEO of Allen & Unwin Australia, for supporting and encouraging this move into children’s publishing. They were instrumental in establishing our local adult publishing list ten years ago and bringing me on as Publisher. Our local list has grown strongly and is very successful, so it makes sense to move into children’s publishing to sit alongside our adult list. In Aotearoa, children’s books account for 29% of the book market, showing that it’s a thriving part of the book ecosystem here. Allen & Unwin Australia has a highly respected children’s publishing division and the clever, lovely team there have been generous in their support of our NZ children’s books. And as we all know, creating keen readers is hugely important, and we’re excited to be able to support writers, illustrators and readers and create exciting books that continue to grow our love of reading.

HM: What are your thoughts on the current state of the children’s publishing industry in Aotearoa, and in the world at large?

JH: Locally children’s publishing appears to be thriving—we have very strong, large publishers like Scholastic NZ and Penguin Random House NZ and a range of smaller but energetic publishers like Oratia, Little Moa, Gecko, Huia and others. Publishers and readers are supported by the incredible network of book lovers like librarians, teachers, Storylines, The Sapling, Paula Green’s Poetry Box, the Book Awards Trust and others who work hard and passionately to make sure children’s publishing is vibrant and meeting the needs of our kids. But our children’s bestseller lists are dominated by English, US and Australia published books from writers like David Walliams, Jeff Kinney, Andy Griffiths and a host of TikTok romantasy sensations. According to Nielsen Bookscan in 2023, only 18% of children’s books sold in NZ were by local authors. Our aim is to help to create a stronger local publishing environment.

There are a lot of challenges and I notice that YA publishing in particular hasn’t been that strong recently. We are hoping that changes, as we are publishing four new YA titles this year and we’re the sponsors of the Storylines Tessa Duder YA Award, so we will continue to publish into this area in future. It feels as though it’s getting harder and harder to reach the teen age group—I guess people would put that down to the popularity of social media, gaming, and streaming services, and possibly shortened attention spans. But teens are reading—look at the phenomenon of BookTok and the flourishing reading that it has created. Our challenge is how to connect readers with books. A good example of this is a friend who gave her 12-year-old daughter a copy of Bear by Kiri Lightfoot to read—this girl had previously read very little and considered herself a non-reader. But she read Bear voraciously and absolutely loved it and has gone on to read many other books. We’re calling Bear ‘the gateway book’ now. That’s great, but it relied on an enthusiastic and knowledgeable mother to connect that child with that book. How can we help readers find books that they will love—that’s our challenge.

A recent report from the Bologna Children’s Book Fair said that we need to publish shorter books with illustrations. Books like that, such as the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, are certainly very popular and of course they’re great, but there are all sorts of readers and we need to publish all sorts of books for them to discover. Fashions come and go in publishing but children’s publishing in general appears to be thriving worldwide. It’s really important that we continue to publish our local authors and give our children books that reflect their lives here in Aotearoa New Zealand. Last year I joined thousands of children at Rachael King’s event in the Aotea Centre as part of Auckland Writers Festival, and it was thrilling to see how energised all these children were about Rachael’s books, and indeed books in general. If they are any indication, the children’s book world is in great hands.

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