Marisa Pintado

Marisa Pintado is the Publishing Director at Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing. She has worked in children's and YA books for more than 15 years and currently works and lives on Wurundjeri Country in Melbourne.

In 2012 Marisa founded the Ampersand Prize, one of Australia’s leading awards for debut novelists, and recently established the Bright Light Books imprint at Hardie Grant, to publish books about resilience, diversity, ability, empathy and change for young children.

Marisa has published a wide range of best-selling and award-winning titles for children and teenagers, including Welcome to Your Period and Welcome to Consent by women’s and adolescent health experts Dr Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes; the Real Pigeons series, which is being adapted to film and TV by Nickelodeon; the School of Monsters series by beloved children’s author Sally Rippin; and the Explore Your World series with environmentalist Dr Tim Flannery.