Allen & Unwin NZ Announces Children’s List And New Publishing Director

Allen & Unwin New Zealand is delighted to announce the newly created role of Publisher at Large for Jenny Hellen who is handing over her role as Publishing Director to Michelle Hurley. Jenny will continue to publish some of her bestselling authors such as Chelsea Winter, Ruth Shaw, Lotta Dann and Doug Gold and will also build up Allen & Unwin’s children's list. Jenny published Mat Tait's extraordinary Te Wehenga, which was the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year in the 2023 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, and this year The Grimmelings by Rachael King, Five Wee Pūteketeke by Nicola Toki and Jo Pearson, and the forthcoming The Raven's Eye Runaways by Claire Mabey. Allen & Unwin NZ is also the new sponsor of Storylines Tessa Duder YA Award and Jenny is publishing the winner Kiri Lightfoot's Bear in 2025 as well as one of the shortlisted titles, Hannah Marshall’s It's A Bit More Complicated Than That.

Michelle Hurley, the publisher of hugely successful titles such as Salad by the Two Raw Sisters, Bella by Annabel Langbein, The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour with Jude Dobson, I Am Autistic and This is ADHD by Chanelle Moriah, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts by Josie Shapiro and Whakawhetai: Gratitude by Hira Nathan is promoted to the role of Publishing Director.

Allen & Unwin NZ Managing Director Melanie Laville-Moore says, ‘This is an exciting time for Allen & Unwin New Zealand. We have ambitious children’s publishing plans and are thrilled that the outstanding Jenny Hellen will be driving the development of this list, alongside her bestselling adult titles. Over the last 10 years, Jenny has transformed our New Zealand non-fiction publishing and will now provide the same magic to books for younger readers. We’re delighted that this leads to a well-deserved promotion for Michelle Hurley to the role of Publishing Director. In her five years with Allen & Unwin, Michelle has demonstrated strong commercial nous with a slew of bestselling titles across many genres including cookbooks, memoir and, most recently, fiction. Under her leadership, our publishing programmes remain in safe and clever hands.’

Allen & Unwin NZ’s new Publisher at Large Jenny Hellen says, ‘I am thrilled to be able to pass on the role of Publishing Director to Michelle Hurley, who is a brilliant publisher and someone who will be able to lead our team to even greater heights. I'm really excited about my new role, delighted to be able to work with some of my ongoing authors, and very much looking forward to working in children's publishing, which has long been one of my passions.’

New Publishing Director Michelle Hurley says, ‘After five years of working alongside the incomparable Jenny Hellen, I'm delighted to take on this new challenge, and even happier that Jenny will lead our spearhead into children's publishing. Together, alongside publisher Tess Nichol, we aim to continue the remarkable growth we've seen from the many bestselling books Allen & Unwin NZ has published over the past several years.’

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