I’m Katherine!
A multidisciplinary creative working across design, tech, and publishing, weaving knowledge and experience into an ecosystem that opens doors, shares knowledge, and provides a principled space where writers feel seen, supported and inspired.
I’ve always lived in books.
From the day I was of the legal working age, I started knocking on the doors of our local bookstores begging for a job. It took until I was 19 to finally work at Dymocks. And then, it took until my final semester at university for someone to say, “you can make a career of books, you know.” Up until this moment, I had been repeatedly told that books were “just a hobby”.
I finished my degree, travelled across the world, and returned to Australia. It took nine long months to get my foot in publishing’s front door.
Penguin Books finally said yes.
(After three separate interviews, the person in HR said something along the lines of ‘please give the girl a damn job’!).
From the moment I walked through those doors, I was home.
I was so fortunate to start where I did because I gained knowledge of the parts, and the whole. It was an incredible foundation upon which to grow a thriving career in publishing.
However, the more I was awakening to the need for diversity, equity, and inclusion, the more I realised that ‘the way it has always been done’ was no longer acceptable.
I couldn’t un-hear ‘no one wants to read queer stories’ (with queer people sitting in the room).
I couldn’t un-see the stark whiteness at every table.
I couldn’t ignore the growing awareness that the industry I adore was complicit in these issues.
A brief stint away from publishing revealed just how much I love bringing stories into the world… I just needed to find a better way of doing it.
And Debut Books was born.
When I first started Debut Books, people kept asking me if it was so I could publish my own work. The thing is, I never wanted to be an author —reading is my jam!
Publishing as we know it has grown from a colonised history of storytelling that has mostly failed to tell the varied and unique stories of people across humanity, having told so many storytellers that there is no space for them.
And yet, storytelling is the magic that keeps us returning to one another in a divided world.
This became abundantly clear as I published The Mini Collection, and my commitment to connection through stories has only strengthened over time.
But beneath all of that is something deeper:
I am drawn to people who are lit from within, who care deeply, who practice, who fail and try again, who light up when they talk about their passion – they love what they do.
I recognise something of myself in those people — a reminder of what it feels like to be fully alive.
And like all living things, Debut Books continues to grow into its truest shape.
Today, it expands into a full creative studio. It brings together coaching, community, craft, design, tech, and creative development under one roof where writers and writing-led projects can be held, guided, and championed.
At its heart, Debut Books is an ecosystem of joy — embodied, purposeful, deeply human joy — where writing exists simply because it lights up something inside you that nothing else can. It provides relational support for the whole writer — the human and the craft — with curiosity, courage, and care.
Here, creativity is treated as a living thing — something that needs tending to, and where writers feel grounded, informed and supported from the first spark of an idea to the moment their book finds its readers and beyond.
No matter where you choose to land within the studio, know this: I’m not just here to help you become an author. I’m here to help you come alive.
Everything else is just a bonus.