Julia Marshall, Founder
Julia Marshall grew up on a farm in Marton, New Zealand.
After ten years in New Zealand as a journalist, she worked in Sweden for 12 years at a publisher of multi-language company magazines and web communication.
Julia came back to Wellington in 2004 to set up Gecko Press and now lives by the beach on the Kāpiti coast.
“As a child I read anything that came my way. I especially remember Mrs Pepperpot, Pippi Longstocking, and Daddy Long Legs. I also read a whole row of Jill and the Pony books until my mother gently steered me elsewhere. I liked tiny people, orphans and horses.”
Favourite picture book as a child: Borka by John Burningham
Photograph © Rebecca McMillan
Rachel Lawson, Publisher-at-large
Rachel Lawson grew up by the beach in Brighton, Otago.
She has been publishing books for almost her whole working life – cookbooks, sports biographies, art books, novels, history and now children’s books. She also taught publishing students for ten years.
“I grew up on an abundant diet of Kaye Webb’s Puffins. I thought The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was the funniest book ever written when I was around 12. I also loved Peanuts, the mini world of The Borrowers, Mary Treadgold’s pony books, and anything about little animals: guinea pigs Olga da Polga and Jean-Pierre, and Carbonel and Gobbolino, both witch’s cats.”
Favourite novel as a child: Gobbolino, the Witch’s Cat by Ursula Moray Williams
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