Pub Talk with Rebecca Slater

It’s a warm January morning when I meet with Rebecca Slater at her local coffee spot. Returning to work after the holiday season, she’s easing back into the year. But not for long. This rising star of the publishing industry has been shaking things up in her role at buzzy new agency, a4 Literary. In the back room of the busy cafe, she lets us in behind the scenes of her career scouting literary talent, selling books and advocating for a fairer, more robust industry.

a4 Literary launched in 2024. What has it been like to help build a new agency from the get-go? 

It’s been exciting. I’d had working relationships with the team at different stages in my career—Grace [Heifetz] at Left Bank, Tom [Gilliatt] at Allen & Unwin and Michaela [McGuire] while she was at Melbourne Writers Festival and I was at the Stella Prize. So it felt like we were able to hit the ground running. And it happened so fast—it was something like five weeks from when we had the first conversation to launching the agency. But it felt like the right time for all of us.

There has been some excitement as you’ve been signing a lot of authors.

I think there’s an amazing opportunity for agents to be building lists right now. There are a lot of incredible senior and experienced agents out there who have full lists and agencies that are not taking submissions. I think publishers have been really energised by it, and authors as well. I have been able to build a stable of authors quicker than I expected in year one of agenting.

Who is an author you’ve signed recently that’s got you excited?

Emma Marie Jones.  I’ve been following her since her column ‘Emma Jones’s Diary’ in  Scum Mag  years ago. I don’t often kind of sign authors on partial manuscripts, but hers really grabbed me, and I signed her right away.

How did you get into the role?

Grace, who I worked with at Left Bank Literary [agency]. She was the person who saw my potential as an agent and really kept at me until I said yes. (Laughs.)

What do you love about the job?

It’s being that first set of eyes on a work and that tingly feeling when it’s arousing your curiosity or is sparking something. That’s so exciting for me. Once a work goes into the publishing machine, it takes on a life of its own, but there’s that private moment right at the beginning where it has untapped potential. I feel lucky that authors trust me to be one of the first eyes on a manuscript. It’s a profound act of kind of trust and hopefulness.

I feel lucky that authors trust me to be one of the first eyes on a manuscript.

Do you have any advice for writers who are looking for an agent?

Do your research in terms of who you think might be a good champion for you. I think you’ll really get a sense of who’s the right fit by chatting to people and hearing their vision for the book or their plans for submissions to publishers. I always encourage any prospective authors I’m talking to take as many meetings as they need.

I would also say: follow the guidelines. We’ve got them outlined on our website, and they’re not there to limit you. We get a huge number of submissions, and it’s really about presenting yourself in a format that enables us to find things of interest quickly. I think sometimes authors feel like by breaking the mould or doing something a bit different that they’re standing out, but they’re actually creating a barrier.

The other advice I’d give is to get involved—meeting other authors, going to writers’ festivals, going to workshops, getting published in journals, putting yourself forward for awards—all those things help give you a bit of a foothold in the industry before you come to us. Having said that, we have authors who come to us with no publication history and no networks whatsoever—they have just written a brilliant novel, and we take it from there. So, I wouldn’t say it’s necessary, but it’s helpful.

What kind of manuscripts are you looking for right now?

The world is a weird and scary place right now. In response, I feel myself drawn to two kinds of submissions at the moment, which may seem counterintuitive put side by side: Books that help us escape from the present moment—that entertain us, transport us, make us laugh, turn us on, etc. And books that go deep into the heart of the present moment—that make us think, challenge us and arm us with the information and deep insight we need to tackle the challenges ahead.

Also, anything with a haunted house.

Do you give editorial advice to writers before approaching publishers?

One of the joys of the stage I am in my career as an agent—I’ve got a mid-sized list at the moment—is that I do have time to do hands-on editorial work. I don’t do it as a rule, only if I think the manuscript needs it and the author’s up for that. But it is something I love doing. Having had a background as a writer and editor, I love that process of having something that’s almost there and being able to move things around and tinker. It’s also a nice bonding experience for you and the client before the work even goes out. We’re getting to know each other’s tastes and building that trust.

What are the common things that come up?

I work with a few debut authors, and they’re often learning how to write a book for the first time, so plot and pacing are the main things that come up, as well as character arcs—just keeping an eye on where a character starts and where they end up. Also: consistency of prose and tone, particularly if they’ve written a book over five years or so. Sometimes there are shifts in language and expression, and it’s about trying to make it feel even and polished.

But one of the things I always say to my writers is that we want to get the book about ninety per cent there. And we don’t want to exhaust them—they still need energy for that rigorous editorial process. The publisher will have all sorts of ideas and will want to make the book their own as well.

We want to get the book about ninety per cent there.

Where did your love of reading first come from?

I confess that I was not that stereotypical kid who always has their nose in a book. I was a sporty kid. It wasn’t until high school that I really locked into English. In that very cliché way, I had an English teacher who changed my life. (Laughs.)

When I came out of high school, I actually enrolled in law for two weeks. I was looking at my textbook and thought: This is the most boring book I’ve ever read—I want to read novels. So I pivoted to creative writing and cultural studies. In this incredible cohort of writers and cultural theorists and all sorts of people, I started to think that this is where I want to build a career. But I came to it, I think, a little bit later in life.

You did your master’s at Oxford University in Creative Writing and English Literature. Was this a formative experience?

It was. By the time I’d done the master’s, I’d been working full-time for five or six years in publishing. I was at a juncture in terms of trying to work out how to juggle wanting to write and wanting to work in the industry. It was a formative moment separating those two pursuits for a little while and just allowing myself to read for pleasure and read for interest, as opposed to reading works with a mind for commercial viability. And also building my own writing and editing practices as well.

Doing it overseas, where I also worked as a literary scout, I was meeting writers from all over the world who had different interests and were exposed to different markets. And just stepping out of the Australian market for a little while allowed me to come back home, ultimately, feeling more energised.

Any Malala sightings?

(Laughs.) I kept my eye out constantly, but I never saw her.

You’re someone I see out and about at literary events, both big and small. What do you love about them?

At a time when the literary industry can feel fractured and challenging, I find them to be an energising and positive coming-together of community. I think it’s a space to have conversations and reconnect with people from all parts of the industry.

They also centre on the writing and on the writers. It is good to just take time to stop and listen and to really appreciate someone standing up and reading a story or poem they’ve written, a moment of stillness in an otherwise very busy and noisy industry. I think it’s really important we continue to come together.

If a writer, published or unpublished, was struggling to get their work noticed, what advice would you give to them? 

I think there’s so much potential and power in writers uplifting other writers’ work. It doesn’t serve anyone to be competitive. Also, I think it helps to connect with readers in different ways. Speak to avid readers, sure, but also see if there are ways of connecting with people outside of literary spaces.

And just be patient as well. Sometimes it takes a while for work to break through. I think sometimes there’s a lot of disappointment if the book doesn’t make it in the first three months—and the industry is really geared towards that. But readers aren’t necessarily working on that timeline. Have faith that readers will come to work in their own time, and try to remain patient and positive. I think it is good to separate the process from the outcome a little bit, and just remember why you write in the first place.

You are also involved with Australia Reads. Could you tell us a bit about that?

It’s a joint industry initiative of the major industry bodies— the publishers’ association, the authors’ association, the libraries’ association, the booksellers’ association—which is an incredibly powerful alliance for lobbying and getting actual structural change and large-scale funding across the line.

We had this remit to look at the reading crisis that was happening in Australia and find ways to actively build reading rates. I was originally approached in a consultancy role, but I’ve now been with them for two years. It’s a project that I’m really unwilling to give up. I think it works side by side with agenting perfectly in my mind—we can’t keep putting books and authors out there if we’re not also putting equal effort into building readerships. I very much see it as from the same ecosystem. They all feed into each other.

We can’t keep putting books and authors out there if we’re not also putting equal effort into building readerships.

What kinds of things is the organisation doing to address this issue?

I think a lot of readers and non-readers need support, and we’re approaching it in a way that is methodical and backed by research. And we’re not rushing into things; we’ve taken the time to do in-depth behavioural science research and industry consultation to come at this with a robust understanding of readers and what they need. We’re now at the point where we’re using that research to lobby the government for serious multi-year investment and reading strategies.

Terri-Ann White, publisher at the small independent house Upswell, recently argued that Australian publishers should publish fewer books and make sure what is published receives adequate resources. As an agent, whose role is to sell books to publishers, what do you think of this argument?

I do understand it. In my work with Australia Reads, I’m constantly having conversations with booksellers and they are overwhelmed by the number of books that are coming across their desks. They have to find the space and the readerships. Discoverability is a real issue. To me, that’s kind of the bigger issue, rather than the quantity.

I don’t have a strong stance on whether or not publishing fewer books should happen, but I do think it is happening already. Publishers are being really selective. Books really do have to be exceptional or have a proven market base to get things across the line. So that shift is happening somewhat naturally. Editorial teams are shrinking, so what is being published is also going to shrink. But I think more initiatives that can help funnel readers into finding books are sorely needed, and as publishers increasingly struggle to make ends meet, there just isn’t that extra money to invest in high-level consumer marketing. We just don’t have the resource base that a lot of other industries have.

Publishers playing it safe also has implications in terms of which books make it to print. What do you make of the concerns around commercialism in contemporary publishing amid the rise of BookTok and romantasy? 

I think reducing the barrier to entry for people to read is one of the best things the industry can be doing. The industry is incredibly good at talking to avid readers—they’re our bread and butter, and we speak the same language as them. But if we want the industry to survive, and if we want new readers coming through, we have to be more expansive, more generous, more open-minded. Quite frankly, at the moment, romantasy readers are propping up the entire industry. So I think snobbishness serves no one, and we need to be publishing books for all kinds of readers—easy reads, short reads, genre, audiobooks. All those things that increase accessibility absolutely have a place in the industry.

The literary novel seems to be under particular pressure right now. Regarding works that are more literary, experimental or less mainstream, what kind of initiatives do you think would help?

Safeguarding our indie publishers is probably the biggest thing we can do for literary fiction. We’ve seen a lot of mergers and acquisitions in recent times, and I think if that’s what’s needed to keep these indie publishers going, then that’s the reality of it.

I think without our indie and university-supported publishers, literary fiction is under threat. We’re certainly looking at things like government intervention and support for independent publishers as a potential mechanism for continuing to support literary and experimental writing. I think ensuring that the entire pipeline, from magazines through to our indie publishers, is sustained is going to be crucial to supporting the future of literary fiction.

Are you interested in taking on writers who work in more experimental styles?

Absolutely. I’ve got a growing number of authors on my list who are writing outside the mainstream in theme, style or content. Of course, I’m always very frank with these authors that it will be more challenging to find them traditional publishing homes, but it’s a pleasure and a privilege nonetheless to work with them, and to put their writing and ideas out into the market and see what happens. Obviously, securing any deal for my authors is a huge thrill, but there’s something particularly satisfying about finding the right publishing champions for these more ‘difficult’ works.

Diversifying the publishing industry is also something you have been passionate about. Could you tell us about co-founding the Open Book paid internship program?

We launched the program in 2021 in response to the reckoning in the English language market around the lack of diversity in the publishing industry. It was a time when we were seeing a huge grab for own-voice stories with the explosion of reader interest in books by culturally diverse authors. But we were also seeing a lag in the backend of publishing houses, which didn’t have the staff with lived experience stewarding those books through the process. We launched Open Book as a collaborative initiative, which I think was important as it allowed for the industry to share learnings and pool resources—no one was really set up to go it alone.

Five years in, how is it going?

We’ve now seen twelve interns successfully complete the program, seven of whom were from First Nations backgrounds. And we’ve seen amazing success in terms of uptake. Ten of those interns have now taken on permanent roles within the literary industry, which has been really fantastic.

But it’s definitely been a steep learning curve, both for us running the program and also for publishers. I think there is a huge gap between the desire to have more culturally diverse professionals and actually having the infrastructure for culturally safe working spaces. Working with the interns, I have learned so much from their new ideas and enthusiasm, not just about being in the industry but changing the industry. And we are constantly reviewing the program and assessing whether or not it is the right intervention. For me, the thing that’s at the top of my mind at the moment is that while we can get all these interns in at entry level, are we able to keep them as mid-career professionals? Are we able to see them progress into leadership positions? So, I think it’s one of many interventions that are needed in order to meaningfully diversify our industry.

It sounds like this program is raising the bar on expectations around working conditions.

Totally, and also challenging the established pipeline. We’ve had this kind of masters-in publishing-to-entry-level-position pipeline for so long, which has resulted in a predominantly white, middle-class workforce. At Open Book, we don’t require a school-leaving certificate. We don’t require a university degree. It’s about having a passionate interest in books and reading, which is really all you should need to get an entry-level position in a publishing house.

In 2024, you were a recipient of Creative Australia’s leadership program. What was that experience like?

Amazing in so many ways. Literature very rarely has the opportunity to strategise with other art forms on how to implement effective strategies to ensure that we can survive. We’re all facing similar challenges in the arts, but we often feel like we have to go it alone or reinvent the wheel when there is a huge amount of joint learning and piggybacking we could do. So, for me, it was incredibly valuable to speak to other art leaders and hear about how they’re tackling issues like AI and declining funding and audiences—these are all shared challenges.

We recently saw the cancellation of the 2026 Adelaide Writers’ Week play out. Are you concerned about political interference and censorship in the arts?

Yes, it’s enormously worrying. I think we absolutely need government at arm’s length from the arts industry and to have our right to curate protected. As Louise Adler said in her incredibly powerful statement, we also need boards that are experienced and in touch with the arts to steer these organisations. The AWW fiasco shows the kinds of harmful decisions that are made due to undue political pressure and the boards’ disconnection with the organisations and artists they are meant to be serving.

What else should AusLit should leave behind in 2026? 

Sad girl lit. I think we’re well and truly into mad girl lit now.  

And what would you like to see more of?

I would like to see equal attention and funding and energy put towards building readerships as there are towards creating new work. It’s invaluable to authors to have these grants, but without the requisite energy into developing new readerships we do not have a sustainable industry.

But I’m hopeful we will see some of that in the establishment of Writing Australia. I think it is an enormously positive step to have a dedicated body for literature.

This interview has been edited for concision and clarity.