Thorndon Press is a publishing birthplace for memoir, fiction, essay, poetry, and literature that experiments in the spaces between.
Publisher Donelle McKinley established Thorndon Press in 2024, inspired by her time working at the historic home of New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield in Thorndon, Wellington, and the self-publishing prowess of KM’s most famous fan, Virginia Woolf.
The inaugural publication Abandon, will be available in 2025.
… it must be ultra modern.
Katherine Mansfield, Notebook 39
About the Publisher
Donelle McKinley brings a wealth of project management experience and literary knowledge to the Press, as well as skills in editing, graphic design, marketing, and sales.
A former Manager of Hard to Find Books, Marketing & Sales Manager of Otago University Press, and National Sales Representative for McGraw-Hill Publishing, she has also side hustled as a literary agent while working as a freelance editor.
Donelle holds a Diploma in Book Publishing, Editing and Proofreading from the New Zealand Institute of Business Studies, a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from University of Auckland, a BA Honours in English from University of Canterbury, and a Master of Information Studies from Victoria University of Wellington.
In 2011, Donelle was awarded a scholarship to New College, University of Oxford, where she studied history of the book. Her family tree claims she is descended from William Shakespeare, but no one can find it, so she can’t prove it.
When she isn’t writing and publishing her own work, she is at your service.
Thorndon Press is a proud supporter of Katherine Mansfield House and Shakespeare Globe Centre NZ.