Michael Heyward Michael Heyward

If you ask Text Publishing’s Michael Heyward what he was doing 20 years ago, he knows.
‘‘I was badgering all the booksellers in the city about sales of Stiff.’’
And at weekends he would go into his local bookshop and surreptitiously rearrange the shelves so Shane Maloney’s first novel – also the first that Text produced – would be more visible to shoppers.
A stalwart of the Text Publishing list, Shane Maloney, author of Stiff. A stalwart of the Text Publishing list, Shane Maloney, author of Stiff. Photo: Simon Schluter

Twenty years after Stiff leapt out of the slush pile, it remains in print and Text has thrived. It has had bestsellers, prize-winners, controversy and comedy. It has created a list of Australian classics and a young-adult list.
‘‘But,’’ says Heyward, ‘‘the single greatest achievement of the company is that it’s still here. Twenty years is a big chunk of a life, but it’s still a very young company.’’
It began as a books operation within Text Media, the company set up in 1990 by Eric Beecher and the late Di Gribble, and was reborn as an independent in 1994 after its parent emerged from a joint venture with a multinational.