Erica Wagner is an artist, publisher and creative consultant to storytellers. For over three decades, Erica has edited and published many ground-breaking and award-winning books for children and young adults. She was an editor and later Associate Publisher at Penguin Books Australia from 1988–1998, established Sliverfish for Duffy & Snellgrove in 1999, and was a children's publisher at Allen & Unwin from 2000–2020. In 2015 she founded the graphic novel micro-press Twelve Panels Press with Bernard Caleo and Elizabeth MacFarlane. The first children’s book editor to receive the Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship in 1999, Erica was awarded the Dromkeen Medal in 2017, the Australian Book Industry's Pixie O'Harris Award in 2021 and the Australian Publishers Association's George Robertson Award in 2022.
Passionate about creative collaborations and illustrated storytelling in particular, Erica co-facilitated the inaugural Octopus Story Camp for Top End writers and artists in 2019 with Johanna Bell. As well as generating several published works, Octopus was also the impetus for Erica to illustrate her first picture book, Hope is the Thing written by Johanna Bell and published by Allen & Unwin in February 2023. Named one of Listener NZ's Top Children's Books for 2023, Hope is the Thing is the winner of the 2024 CBCA New Illustrator Award and the Picture Fiction category of the 2024 Wilderness Society Environment Awards for Children's Literature.
Erica loves travelling to remote parts of Australia with her partner Craig Smith, and continues to develop her art practice alongside her publishing and mentoring work.
'Erica Wagner's commitment to championing innovative creators has shaped and changed Australian children's publishing. For thirty years, she has nurtured the careers of many of Australia's most gifted writers and illustrators of young people's literature. Her ability to recognise talent and her courage in promoting new voices and innovative forms of story-telling sets a benchmark for dynamic publishing. Throughout her career, and in every publishing house that she has worked with, Erica has been a cutting-edge innovator, a risk taker and a passionate creative thinker.' – From the 2017 Dromkeen Medal citation
Find me on Instagram @ericawagnerstudio.