Founded in 1991, Spinifex Press is an independent feminist press, publishing innovative and controversial fiction and non-fiction by Australian and international authors. Founded by Renate Klein and Susan Hawthorne, it was awarded the international Pandora New Venture Award for 1991 from Women in Publishing (UK).
From 2006, the publishers began to release ebooks via an ebookstore on their website, the first small press in Australia to do so (according to the Spinifex website). Many of the Spinifex press backlist have been digitised and made available as e-books.
In 2010 they received an Australia Council Grant to create a Digital Feminist Classics series, which including works such as Finola Moorhead's Remember the Tarantella, Beryl Fletcher's The Word Burners, and Maria Mies' The Lace Makers of Narsapur.
Spinifex continues to publish significant works of feminist thought, poetry, and novels. Their works have won the Queensland Literary Awards (Adani, Following Its Dirty Footsteps : A Personal Story; White Turtle : A Collection of Short Stories), Most Underrated Book Award (Fish-Hair Woman), and the National Book Awards [Philippines] (White Turtle : A Collection of Short Stories) and been shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Award (Cow), the ACT Book of the Year Award (Accidents of Composition; Imago), and the Anne Elder Award (Poems From the Madhouse).
