Founder Michael Wilding | ||
Wild & Woolley is an Australian book publisher founded in 1974 by Pat Woolley and Michael Wilding. The first books published by the firm were Zimmer's Essay (Adamson & Hanford) and Wrappings by Vicki Viidikas.
Authors published by the firm include Robert Adamson who became Australia's first Professor of Poetry in 2012 at the University of Technology, Sydney, Dennis Altman, Glenn A. Baker, Faith Bandler, Lee Cataldi, Ron Cobb, Fred Cress, Laurie Duggan, Pam Brown, David Foster, Billy Jones, Kris Hemensley, Antigone Kefala, Stephen Knight, Rudi Krausmann,Jack Lindsay, Bruce Petty, Nigel Roberts, Katherine Susannah Prichard, Jon Silkin, Colin Talbot, Albie Thoms, Christine Townend, Pi O, Vicki Viidikas and Michael Wilding. The firm also acted as Australian distributors for various foreign publishers including Black Sparrow Press, City Lights Books, And/Or, New Directions, Zed Books, Gay Mens, John Calder and Pluto Press
Wild & Woolley made their office and warehouse available at no charge for the launch of the Makar Press's The New Australian Poetry The editor of this anthology, John Tranter, recalls that when poet and academic Andrew Taylor took the stage to make the official launch (having stepped in at the last moment due to the illness of Bob Brissenden) that as the crowd quietened down John Forbes yelled out ‘Cultural Lackey!’.
In 1990, Woolley became a pioneer of digital publishing. "The revolutionary way to publish books" cried the Sydney Morning Herald as the firm turned out 100 copies of a 100-page book in one hour.