Governance

Historical Novel Society Australasia Inc is an incorporated not-for-profit association and registered charity in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW). It is managed by a committee elected by a small body of active members. It is part of the international network of the Historical Novel Society in the UK and US. Here you will find details of our policies, approaches, and organisation.

HNSA acknowledges the traditional owners of the lands upon which it works and recognises their continuing connection to land and water. We pay respect to elders past, present and emerging.

Our People

The Historical Novel Society Australasia (HNSA) is driven by the passion and dedication of its people. Managed by a dedicated committee elected by our active members, HNSA brings together a diverse group of individuals who share a passion for historical fiction.

Click to learn more about our wonderful committee.

Our approach to diversity and inclusion

The HNSA committee programs our conferences using the principles of diversity and inclusion as a priority. We will not tolerate expressions of any kind of hatred or discrimination at our events.

Our community of writers and readers is welcoming and diverse, and we try to create events in spaces that reflect and enable this.

Our current strategies to support this include:

  • Ensuring venue sites are accessible

  • Acknowledging the traditional owners of the lands on which
    we meet, and inviting them to formally open our events with a Welcome to Country

  • Inviting writers from a range of cultural backgrounds, life
    experiences and viewpoints, particularly writers from marginalised communities

  • Acknowledging the complex ways in which Indigenous and Pasifika
    experiences are represented in fiction and in history writing in our countries, and highlighting these issues in panels, speeches and interviews

  • Ensuring that at least one of our most prestigious guest
    roles showcases the work of a First Nations writer

  • Establishment of a First Nations Participation Fund in 2019
    to support the participation of guests from New Zealand or Australia who might not otherwise be able to appear

  • Keeping prices as low as possible, including discounts for
    students and concession holder

  • Positive engagement with ideas and issues around the need
    for diversity in the publishing industry and writing communities

  • Providing opportunities for aspiring and emerging writers to
    have their work considered in pitch contests – anonymously and without prejudice

  • Running online workshop programs and conference sessions to encourage participation from regional, interstate and international speakers and registrants

If you have ideas for improvements or changes, we’d love to hear from you.

-HNSA Committee

Program advisory panel

To improve depth, breadth and innovation in our programs, the HNSA Committee has established a Program Advisory Panel to assist in using principles of diversity and inclusion. We are grateful for the invaluable contribution of the panel members below.

  • Tim Darcy Ellis (BA BSc, MHSc) is a writer, business owner and formerly a professional archaeologist. His critically acclaimed debut, ‘The Secret Diaries of Juan Luis Vives’ is a fast-paced and meticulously researched historical novel. Tim is passionate about bringing his love of history, archaeology and philosophy together: and to express it by writing great fiction. For further information:

  • Kelly Gardiner writes historical fiction for all ages. Her latest series is The Firewatcher Chronicles. Her other books include Goddess, based on the life of Mademoiselle de Maupin; 1917: Australia’s Great War, shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Young People’s History Prize and Asher Award; the Swashbuckler pirate trilogy; and a picture book, Billabong Bill’s Bushfire Christmas. Her young adult novels Act of Faith and The Sultan’s Eyes, were both shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, while Act of Faith was shortlisted for the ASA’s Barbara Jefferis Award. A former journalist, Kelly teaches creative writing at La Trobe University. For further information:

  • Roanna Gonsalves is the award-winning author of the acclaimed collection of short fiction The Permanent Resident (UWAP) published in India as Sunita De Souza Goes To Sydney (Speaking Tiger). Her writing has been compared to the work of Alice Munro and Jhumpa Lahiri. Her four-part radio series On the tip of a billion tongues, commissioned and broadcast by ABC RN’s Earshot program, is an acerbic portrayal of contemporary India through its multilingual writers. She teaches creative writing within the university sector in Australia. For further information:

  • Suzanne Leal is the author of novels The Teacher’s Secret, Border Street and, most recently, The Deceptions , which was shortlisted for the Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award and won the Nib People’s Choice Prize. A regular presenter at literary events and co-presenter of the BAD All About Crime podcast, Suzanne is the host of Thursday Book Club, a relaxed, friendly book club connecting readers online. For further information:

  • Born in Indonesia of French parents Sophie Masson AM is the award-winning author of over 70 books, for children, young adults and adults, many of which are in the historical novel genre. These include the bestselling award-winner The Hunt for Ned Kelly (Scholastic Australia, children’s) and the genre-bending Forest of Dreams(Penguin/Random House, adult). Forthcoming in 2022 is Sydney under Attack(Scholastic Australia, children’s) Sophie is also a founding partner and publishing director of award-winning small publisher, Christmas Press, a children’s/YA specialist, which has published historical novels for children, by established and emerging authors, under its Eagle Books imprint. For more information:

  • Paula Morris (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Whatua) is the author of the story collection Forbidden Cities (2008); the long-form essay On Coming Home (2015); and eight novels, including Rangatira (2011), winner of best work of fiction at both the 2012 New Zealand Post Book Awards and Ngā Kupu Ora Maori Book Awards. Her most recent book is False River (2017), a collection of stories and essays around the subject of secret histories. She teaches creative writing at the University of Auckland, sits on the Māori Literature Trust, Mātātuhi Foundation, and New Zealand Book Awards Trust, and is the founder of the Academy of New Zealand Literature. Appointed an MZNM in the 2019 New Year Honours, she currently holds the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship. For further information:

  • Rachel Bin Salleh is descended from the Nimunburr and Yawuru peoples of the Kimberley. Rachel is passionate about First Nations peoples telling their stories and started at Magabala Books in the 1990s. In 2014, Rachel became Magabala’s Publisher and wrote her first book Alfred’s War (2018).  For further information:

  • Indrani Ganguly is from a Bengali Indian background. She lives in Brisbane, Australia with her Dutch-Australian husband, son, daughter, grandson and two beagles.   

    Indrani’s publications comprising both academic and creative works include a book based on her Ph.D. thesis, The Social History of a Bengal Town (1987), an anthology of poetry, prose and fiction titled In My Father’s House (2015) and a historical novel The Rose and the Thorn (2019) focusing on the role of so-called ordinary women in  India’s national movement for independence. She is now working on the sequel which continues the story in post-Independence India and explores some Australia-India connections. For further information:

  • Sienna Brown is a novelist and film maker born in Jamaica and now living in Sydney. Her debut novel, Master of My Fate (Penguin Random House, 2019), won the MUD Literary Prize for best debut novel at the Adelaide Writers’ Week and was a finalist in the inaugural $60,0000 2020 ARA Historical Novel Prize. Before turning to fiction, Brown worked as a film director/editor. A highlight is her SBS documentary My Bush Wedding about the Aboriginal artist Gordon Syron. She has also won numerous awards for her educational videos. Brown has a BA in directing from the Australian Film Television and Radio School and technical experience in all aspects of screen media. She also has experience in public engagement and events management, having worked ten years for Sydney Living Museums.

  • TBC

HNSA Privacy Policy

As The Historical Novel Society Australasia (HNSA) values your privacy, this policy discloses the privacy practices for our Website under requisite Australian law which governs not-for-profit organisations.

Definitions

‘HNSA Newsletter’ means the HNSA News, Interviews and Reviews newsletter.

‘HNSA News & Interviews’ is a webpage on our Website devoted to streaming news, interviews and articles about historical fiction.

‘Imagining the Past’ is an interview podcast series presented by HNSA on Audioboom.

‘Personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person; in particular reference to an identifier such as a name, location data, IP address or email.

‘Subscriber’ means a person who has consented to receive the HNSA Newsletter.

‘Visitor’ means an individual who views pages at the Website.

‘Website’ means www.hnsa.org.au

Who are we?

HNSA is a not-for-profit incorporated association which promotes the writing, reading and publication of historical fiction, especially in Australia and New Zealand, primarily through running biennial conferences. We are the owner of the Website which is used to promote our conferences and speakers as well as share information about writing, history, inspiration and historical fiction via the HNSA Newsletter, HNSA News & Interviews, and Imagining the Past. Access to information held on the site is restricted to committee members and our service provider David Tiong Web Consultancy.

Access and retention of data

Social media features

We use social media features such as social media share buttons and social media widgets to enable you to access platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Audioboom. These features may collect your browsing information including your IP address and the page you are visiting on our website, and set cookies to enable the feature to function correctly. As social media widgets are hosted by third parties on our website, your interactions with them will be governed by the privacy policies of the third party organisations providing the widgets. For example, if you choose to ‘like’ or ‘share’ information on a post or page through these services, you should review the privacy policy of that service. If you are a member of a social media site, the interfaces may allow the social media site to connect your visits to my site with other personal information.

HNSA Newsletter and Mailchimp 

Mailchimp is a third-party newsletter management tool used widely by community groups, business and government. We use Mailchimp as our automation platform to manage email subscriptions and newsletter campaigns.

The embedded subscriber form on the HNSA website enabling you to sign up to our HNSA Newsletter is linked to Mailchimp. When subscribing to the HNSA Newsletter, the information you provide is transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Mailchimp stores information about subscribers including first and last name, email address, gender, country, where you heard about HNSA and your interest in historical fiction including method of sign up, and details of interactions with email newsletter campaigns.

Mailchimp may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third party tracking, and monitor your interaction with the embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account or are logged into that website. This service is governed by Mailchimp’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics, a service which transmits website traffic data to Google servers in the United States. Google Analytics does not identify individual users or associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. Information retained by Google Analytics is anonymised and only kept for 26 months.

By using our website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner described in Google’s Privacy Policy  and for the purposes set out above. You can opt out of Google Analytics if you disable or refuse the cookies, disable JavaScript, or use the opt-out service provided by Google.

WordPress Post Comments

WordPress is the website content management system that we use for our website. When visitors leave comments on our News & Interviews stream, we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user string to help spam detection. An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is available to the public in the context of your comment. If you leave a comment, your comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely so we can recognise and approve any follow up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

If you leave a comment you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

You can control or delete cookies already on your computer and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed. If you do this, however, you may have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site and some services and functionalities may not work. Visit your browser’s help information to find out how to do that.

Use and sharing of your data

We only use the personal data collected by Mailchimp and WordPress to send out Newsletters and respond to comments. We use reports provided by Google Analytics to enhance our understanding of what subscribers are looking for, and to track performance, security and usability.

We do not share your personal data with any third parties other than David Tiong Web Consultancy, which has its own privacy policy, solely for the purpose of maintaining the website and newsletter.

Visitors’ comments on our website may be checked through an automated spam detection service, and are moderated by a member of the Committee.

Rights over your data

If you have left comments on our News & Interviews stream, or have signed up for the HNSA Newsletter, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any information we’re obliged to keep for legal or security purposes or which we believe we should retain for a legitimate purpose.

If you wish to unsubscribe from the HNSA Newsletter then you may click the link in the footer of the newsletter email.

If you wish your personal data deleted from the News & Interviews stream or at Mailchimp, please email contact@hnsa.org.au

Services we link to

We provide direct links to book product pages on various retail sites to enable visitors to purchase books directly from those booksellers, and promote work by our conference speakers. There may also be links to other websites such as online research resources and review sites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices employed by those websites including their content and information. When you click on those links you are moving to a third party website or service, and our privacy policy does not apply to them. Please review their policies for how they collect, manage and use your browsing interactions, and your personal data.

Amazon Associates program

HNSA is a participant in the Amazon Commercial Services Pty Ltd Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.au. HNSA may earn a small commission for any endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, and/or link to any products or services from this website. If you purchase a book via a link from our website through the Amazon Associates Program, HNSA receives a commission of 2% of the price of a digital book, and 8% of a physical book from Amazon.com.au.

When you click on a book link on our website you are moving to the Amazon website or service, and our privacy policy does not apply to it. This is governed by Amazon’s privacy policy and the Amazon Associates Program Operating Agreement. Please review its policy for how collect, manage and use your browsing interactions, and your personal data HNSA does not retain any of your data as a result of clicking the link or purchasing a book.

Trybooking

HNSA uses Trybooking as its online ticket selling portal. When you click through to Trybooking, you are moving to a third party website and service and our privacy policy does not apply to it. This is governed by the Trybooking Privacy Policy. Please review its policy for how collect, manage and use your browsing interactions, and your personal data.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

Our Privacy Policy may change from time to time and all updates will be effective once posted on this page. If you feel that we are not abiding by this privacy policy, you should contact us immediately at contact@hnsa.org.au