Pink Shorts Press is creating a literary oasis in the Adelaide Arcade
Having first met at Wakefield Press, Margot Lloyd and Emily Hart moved on to interstate-based publishers but have now come home to Adelaide to launch their passion project, Pink Shorts Press.
“We’re going with the terrifying bite-the-bullet approach,” Emily says.
“We always really wanted to come back to Adelaide and Pink Shorts Press was our way of doing that and doing something that was going to celebrate writing, words and the creative community here in South Australia.”
Many would recognise the reference behind the publishing house’s name, which highlights the pair’s love for the festival state.
Inspired by former premier Don Dunstan’s bold fashion statement, Emily says the pink shorts in question encapsulate “an era in South Australia’s cultural and social history and that sort of mischievous spirit”.
“It’s also a nod to the fact that we are focusing on feminism and inclusive books and books on the shorter side too,” she says.
The publisher officially launched at Adelaide Writers’ Week but will this week celebrate moving into the Adelaide Arcade, tucked away next door to Two-Bit Villains.
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The spot, procured with the help of Renew Adelaide, will double as an office and event space.
“We knew we wanted to have a space, so we weren’t working from our kitchen tables,” Emily says.
The Adelaide Arcade location allows the duo to host “Wordshops” in-house, with community events “like literary speed dating or silent reading” also on the radar.
“It’s such a beautiful big space with lots of natural light, and we feel like it would be such a nice place to have a dedicated couple of hours reading with some fellow readers around,” Emily says.
Their Wordshops are crash courses in writing and editing skills to help individuals and brands learn how to edit their own work, or the work of generative AI, to build a narrative, cut the fluff and say more with less.
The co-founders believe that due to the growing use of AI, brands are losing the ability to be personable and connect with clients through writing.
“When people think about a brand, they often think about how that brand looks in terms of a logo or colour, but they don’t necessarily think about how their voice sounds,” Emily says.
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Emily says communicating with customers is “not necessarily just about how you look, it’s actually how you express your ideas or your offering or even how you follow up with them on email”.
The Adelaide Arcade space will also sell Pink Shorts Press’ curated selection of books, with plans to add more to the collection in the coming months..
Their first book is a rerelease of a 1974 feminist classic from South Australian Barbara Hanrahan, who was “best known as an artist, but she also published 15 books before she died,” Emily says.
They plan to release a new Hanrahan book Annie Magdalene in August, along with debut works by South Australian authors, Plastic Budgie by Olivia De Zilva and Playing Nice Was Getting Me Nowhere by Alex Cothren.
Margot says as a new publishing house, they’ve found “no shortage of incredible writing coming out of Australia and South Australia specifically” and despite challenges facing the industry, the duo believe there are opportunities for publishers willing to take the risk.
The publisher aims to showcase the literary scene outside the eastern states, mainly looking for stories with a connection to South Australia or the Northern Territory.
Emily reminds those who have not picked up a book in a while that “it’s good for your brain not just to be spending time off a screen but to be doing something where you’re not just passively entertaining yourself”.
“Reading is revolutionary,” she says.
