Erica Wagner is an artist, publisher and creative consultant to storytellers. She exhibits regularly in solo and group shows and was the 2017 winner of the inaugural VAS George Hicks Foundation Contemporary Art Prize. For over three decades, Erica has edited and published many ground-breaking and award-winning books for children and young adults, starting out with Penguin Books Australia in 1988, establishing Sliverfish, a children's list for Duffy & Snellgrove, in 1999, and working at Allen & Unwin from 2000–2020. In 2015 she founded the graphic novel micro-press Twelve Panels Press with Bernard Caleo and Elizabeth MacFarlane. The first children’s book editor to receive the Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship in 1999, Erica was awarded the Dromkeen Medal in 2017, the Australian Book Industry's Pixie O'Harris Award in 2021 and the Australian Publishers Association's George Robertson Award in 2022. Passionate about illustrated storytelling in particular, Erica and Johanna Bell co-facilitated the inaugural Octopus Story Camp for Top End writers and artists in 2019. Her first picture book, Hope is the Thing written by Johanna Bell, was published in February 2023. It was named one of Listener NZ's Top Children's Books for 2023 and shortlisted for the 2024 CBCA New Illustrator Award.
'Erica Wagner's commitment to championing innovative creators has shaped and changed Australian children's publishing. For thirty years, she has nurtured the careers of many of Australia's most gifted writers and illustrators of young people's literature. Her ability to recognise talent and her courage in promoting new voices and innovative forms of story-telling sets a benchmark for dynamic publishing. Throughout her career, and in every publishing house that she has worked with, Erica has been a cutting-edge innovator, a risk taker and a passionate creative thinker.' – From the 2017 Dromkeen Medal citation
Photo by Sister Scout