Image: Shannyn Higgins
I'm a magazine and features editor based on Wurundjeri land in Melbourne, Australia. I'm currently on maternity leave, returning to the professional realm in late 2026.
I bring a quality-of-life focus to the future's most pressing topics and translate dense, academic subjects into engaging content. During nearly a decade living in the United States, I edited New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling books, conceived innovative digital projects, and led award-winning teams of journalists and designers.
When I returned to Melbourne, I became the publisher of ABC Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Australia. I wanted to spend the next stage of my career telling Australian stories, and this opportunity brought my dual careers in news journalism and book publishing together. During my time at ABC Books, I worked with esteemed journalists such as ABC global affairs editor John Lyons, former Four Corners investigative reporter Quentin McDermott, and Guardian lifestyle editor Alyx Gorman; produced humorous guidebooks by The Chaser co-creator Dom Knight and Bush Mechanics and Black As director David Batty; and even brought national living treasure Dr Karl’s long-awaited memoir to life. During my first year, three of my non-fiction books were longlisted for the Walkley Book Award, and one was shortlisted for Biography of the Year.
I was then named the managing editor of Domain in The Saturday Age, as well as the launch editor for Prestige Victoria, which went on to be shortlisted for Mumbrella’s 2025 Launch of the Year. As a young journalist, editing a weekend magazine was always a dream – so to helm one with an average readership of 693,000 was a true pinch-me moment.
In addition to my journalistic work as ideas editor at Quartz and the editor of Kinfolk magazine, I was a literary agent with Aevitas Creative Management in New York, where I represented nonfiction books about emerging science and technology, futurism, design, culture, and the arts. I am also a freelance book editor, helping Big 5 publishers make sense of their thorniest manuscripts on topics such as augmented reality, cell biology, feminist economics, and digital democracy.
Aside from editing and writing, I'm a public speaker, workshop facilitator, and panel moderator. I’ve spoken about blockchain at the UN, facilitated cross-council sessions on future-proofing technology for the World Economic Forum, MC’d the AI stage at Web Summit, presented on evolutionary psychology at Creative Mornings, and helped write the opening talk at TED 2024. Offstage, I was also a member of the WEF’s Future of Quantum Computing Council, a consulting producer at the Intelligence Squared debate series, and a fellow at the N Square Innovation Network, focusing on raising awareness of nuclear weapon proliferation.
I specialise in making obtuse content accessible and complicated ideas simple. Whether that’s a whitepaper on a new economic theory, a short film on the ethics of gene editing, or a children’s book on the microbiome, I’m interested in using unexpected mediums to bring awareness to the world’s most important issues.
I love having a chat—if you do too, drop me a line here.