It’s been a long time since the ESL-SPIN team met up. Finally we were able to meet our newest member, Lauren Piovesan of ESLReads, in person! Here we are holding copies of our reading books at the fabulous VicTESOL conference, where we got to meet so many enthusiastic and talented colleagues.

If you don’t know us, from left to right you can see Carmel Davies and Sharon Duff from Urban Lyrebirds, Clare Harris from The Book Next Door, and Lauren Piovesan from ESLReads. (The colour co-ordination was not planned…)

We came away determined to be more active on this site, letting teachers know about ALL the wonderful indie ESL publications here in Australia, for adult and for younger learners, so watch this space.

Meanwhile, Lauren’s thoughts on the conference, as shared on LinkedIn (please connect with us there!):

What a privilege to present at the VicTESOL International Conference alongside the incredible Clare Harris (The Book Next Door), and Carmel Davies & Sharon Duff (Urban Lyrebirds). Their creativity and determination to keep self-publishing alive in the EAL space is truly inspiring.

A huge thank you to everyone who came to our session—I hope we gave you some honest insights into both the pinnacles and pitfalls of self-publishing. It was such a joy to meet so many passionate educators brimming with ideas.

I also loved catching some standout presentations from Lynette Lingard, River Nile School team, and Carringbush Adult Education’s Elizabeth Keenan and Beth Zielinski—so many gems of knowledge shared.

And finally, it was wonderful to reconnect with past colleagues and chat with teachers already using ESL Reads. Your feedback is invaluable—thank you for stopping by!

Thanks, everyone, for stopping by this site. We plan to make it a very worthwhile exercise…