Jane Smith – Editor

I'm an Australian freelance editor with experience in editing a variety of genres and providing a range of services for independent authors, traditional publishers and academic institutions. I have qualifications in both editing and librarianship, and I'm a published author of both traditionally published and self-published books for children and adults – fiction and non-fiction. Through my career as librarian, author and editor, I have had a wide exposure to literature of all genres and developed a broad understanding of the publishing industry. Four of my own books have been short- or long-listed for literary prizes.

I write historical books: fiction and non-fiction, for adults and children. My books include the 'Australian Bushrangers' series (5 titles), the children's historical fiction 'Tommy Bell, Bushranger Boy' (8 titles so far, 5 to come), and 'Captain Starlight: the strange but true story of a bushranger, impostor and murderer), all published by Big Sky Publishing. I also wrote 'The story of The Swamp: a children's history of Toowoomba' (published by Toowoomba City Library) and am about to self-publish 'Ship of death: the tragedy of the "Emigrant"'. My book 'Captain Thunderbolt' (from the 'Australian Bushrangers' series) was shortlisted for an Australian Book Industry Award in 2015, and two books from my 'Tommy Bell' series have been listed for major awards (#1 was a Children's Book Council of Australia 'notable' in 2017 and #7 is currently listed for a Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Award). My books are meticulously researched and have been well reviewed.

I worked as a librarian and archivist at the secondary campus of Concordia Lutheran College from 2011 to 2018, and at one of the junior campuses as librarian from 2004 to 2010. My duties included book selection and cataloguing and working closely with students and teachers to meet their information and recreational reading needs and encourage a love of books. In 2017 I initiated and ran a writing project with a group of Indigenous students. After a three-day writing workshop conducted by the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, they produced a book that was launched at the Brisbane Writers' Festival.