Robyn Sheahan-Bright has operated ‘justified text’ writing and publishing consultancy services since 1997, and publishes widely on literature for young people, Australian fiction, and publishing history. She has worked as editorial advisor, reader, and writer for several Australian adult and children’s publishers, and writes reading group notes and teachers’ notes for a range of publishing clients.
She holds the degrees of Bachelor of Arts (UQ), Graduate Diploma in Library Science (QUT), Licentiate Speech and Drama (AMEB), Master of Letters (Distinction) (UNE), and PhD (Griffith). Between 2000 and 2009, she lectured/tutored a course on writing for children and young adolescents at Griffith University (Gold Coast) where she also completed her PhD, with a thesis entitled 'To Market, To Market: The Development of the Australian Children's Publishing Industry'. Between 2003 and 2010, she taught an online course on publishing and technology for USQ. She continues to act as thesis assessor for several universities.
She is an Honorary Life Member of the Qld Writers Centre, and was its founding director from 1991 to 1997. She was also co-founder and publisher of Jam Roll Press from 1987 to 1994. From 1998 to 1999 she was Chair, Writing Assessment Panel, Arts Qld; and from 1996 to 2002 was a member of the Public Libraries Advisory Committee of the State Library of Queensland. She has been Committee Member (1991–1997) and Vice-Chair, Brisbane Writers Festival (1995–1997); Chair, Writing and Publishing Standing Committee Queensland Arts Industry Training Council, (1992–1997); and President of Children’s Book Council of Australia (Qld) (1991–1993). In 2000, Sheahan-Bright was appointed a Member of the Literature Board of the Australia Council for a three-year term, and in that role also served on the assessment committees for the Beatrice Davis Fellowship, Young and Emerging Writers Grants, and Audience and Market Development Grants.
She was co-editor with Dr Craig Munro of Paper Empires: A History of the Book in Australia 1946 -2005, a national study documenting specific areas of post-war publishing development, and with Stuart Glover of Hot Iron Corrugated Sky 100 Years of Queensland Writing (2002). Her research relating to the literature of the Port Curtis region of Queensland, resulted in Kookaburra Shells Port Curtis Literature (2006).
In 1999 she became Project Manager, Residential Editorial Program (REP), funded by the Australia Council for the Arts, and managed by the Australian Publishers Association; she was a committee member for REP 2002; and has been the Program Manager for REP (2004–2014), each program being held at Varuna in Katoomba, NSW.
Sheahan-Bright has also been coordinating judge for the Penguin Qantas Somerset College Novella National Writing Competition for School Age Writers from its inception in 1999 until 2011, and also judges the QAC Sir Theodore Bray Regional Young Writers Awards. From 2003 she has been a member of the Young Adult Fiction category judging panel, Queensland Literary Awards (previously the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards). She was inaugural Chair of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards (Children’s and Young Adult panel) from 2010–11.
Current affiliations include being Deputy-Chair of the Board of the Australian Society of Authors; Secretary of the Board of the Australian Children’s Literature Alliance, which administers the Australian Children’s Laureate Program; a member of the IBBY (Australia) Inc Committee; and President of the Curtis Coast Literary Carnivale Committee.
In 2011, she was the recipient of the CBCA (Qld Branch) Dame Annabelle Rankin Award for Distinguished Services to Children’s Literature in Queensland, and in 2012, the CBCA (National) Nan Chauncy Award for Outstanding Services to Children’s Literature in Australia. In 2014, she received the Queensland Writers’ Centre’s Johnno Award in recognition of outstanding contribution to Queensland writers and writing.
Before 1997 Robyn Sheahan-Bright published under the name Robyn Sheahan.
