On Saturday 17th October 2026, Amba Press hosted its very first Community Day at the Centre for Strategic Education in Abbotsford. What a day it was.
The programme brought together authors, educators, publishers and readers for a full day of conversation, connection and celebration of books.
The day opened with an Authoring Panel hosted by Angus Humphries, featuring Janine Stratford, Kelly Irving frm the Export Author Community and Brooke Lyons. The conversation explored what it really takes to find and stay in your own voice as an author, with the idea of germination emerging as a theme for how books begin.
Anam Javed from the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership launched Practical AI Strategies 2 by Dr Leon Furze. The session sparked a rich conversation about the postnormal world we are living in, and the reminder that AI is not simply a chatbot but an infrastructure level change to society itself.
Dr Matt Pitman hosted our Marketing and Promotion Panel, featuring Tess McCabe, Hazel Edwards OAM and Shontelle Prout. The panel offered practical and generous thinking about how authors can make it easier for readers to find them and their work. Having Hazel Edwards OAM in the room was a moment in itself.
Rebecca Vukovic, Deputy Editor of Teacher Magazine at ACER, launched the Driving School Improvement Workbook by Pamela Macklin and Vic Zbar, a practical resource for school leaders thinking carefully about how change happens in schools.
The day closed with the very first live Educators Book Club, with Lottie Dowling, Steven Kolber and Mark Parry together in the same room for the first time. The session wrapped up with a This or That Books Edition game that had the room in fits of laughter and sparked exactly the kind of conversations about books that we love most.
Thank you to everyone who came, who contributed and who made the day what it was. And to Simon Le Plastrier and the Centre for Strategic Education for the wonderful venue.
See you next year. 📚
