IWD & World Book Day: Celebrating The Courage Of Bonita Mersiades & FairPlay's Treasure-Trove Library Of Literature That Transcends The "Sports Book"
In celebration of World Book Day, March 6, and International Women's Day, March 8, we stop off in Sydney on the cusp of the 2nd Manley Writers' Festival organised by Bonita Mersiades, the founder of Fair Play Publishing
The age of self-publishing has dumped felled-forest-loads of books into the world. Most are personal projects with an intended readership of family and a few friends, while niche sectors dealing in topics of narrow focus have found a new home away from the big publishing houses that need bigger markets to justify their investment in works aimed at a much wider commercial market.
Self-publishing in niche markets is certainly own the rise along with the learning curve and the awareness among authors at both ends of a spectrum from hobby to professional writer that the marketplace in books is a challenging one, some of the reasons outlined in this article.
In that climate, the publishing industry is a sector with relatively few big earners among its authors and an industry constantly challenged to find and then support writing that catches a big enough wave to sustain long-term, professional relationships and commitments.
Finding a niche with a point and purpose is one of the models where the work of writers capable of putting a book-sized project together and making the work attractive enough to as many readers as it takes to at least cover the costs of a process much weightier than anyone who hasn't gone through it might imagine.
Heartening then to know that there are outfits that have found a place in the world and even manage to couple their work to the organisation of a Writers' Festival.
Enter Bonita Mersiades and Fair Play Publishing, the house she founded in 2016. If you've never heard of her or Fair Play before, here she is in a video that tells you everything you need to know about how she came to name the company as she did.
A whistleblower talking about FIFA corruption in a calm and clear manner that still leaves your hair standing on end as she talks about her time as a senior executive with Football Australia:
A year ago, I had the privilege of attending the 1st Manly Writers' Festival as co-author of Michelle Ford's Turning The Tide:
Craig Lord
Here's an interview with me on the festival podcast talking about the book and the work with Michelle, her Athlete Voice and the mistakes and missteps of an IOC that has still to right the wrongs of the past and acknowledged the harm done to athletes during one of the darkest chapters of Olympic history:
The 2nd Manly Writers' Festival is now nigh. It will take place a short stride away from the Sydney shoreline and beach of the same place and name this month, from March 28-20.
The host, Fair Play Publishing, is a treasure trove that transcends the "sports book" market. Make no mistake, there's plenty of sport on the shelves of Bonita's library of works published by her house.
It's just that there's a twist in the tales in the tomes she's supported. Every book is different, of course, but in general, it's about taking the sport and coupling it with what has long been the better art of sports coverage in mainstream print media: the sports story and the story behind the story where the light shines on years of preparation and rehearsal.
At its best, the work bristles with truth, transparency, emotion, from elation to devastation, crisis to clear-headedness in the mix. It's a place where we learn more than we knew about matters of cultural and social development, the colour and perspective of human life in all its varieties, from the highs of celebrating soaring achievement to the lows of abuse, cheating, manipulation, racism, sexism, corruption and everything else you can fit into the kind of closet sports governors, politicians, rogues - sometimes, but far from always, the same people - have been all too keen to lock before throwing away the key - only to find the world has good people in it.
The whistleblower comes in many shapes and sizes: an official, athlete, coach, parent, expert in a relevant field, administrator or even the cleaner who says, "I found this, not sure what it is..." when handing over a document to the humble worker in the office who managed a smile and a 'good morning' each day.
And so, in the absence of sports governance systems that any of the folk listed above can truly trust because the whistleblower is directed to a chain of reporting that will clearly hand them over to people who have failed to do the right thing when presented with a test of integrity, sometimes time and again, they turn away.
Some of them end up turning to to folk like me and my colleagues, journalists like the late Andrew Jennings:
Jens Weinreich
... and many others, who get to work with the key or the evidence that leads them to the key. That kind of work is less supported in general than it has been in the past, particularly in the fast-paced digital world in which media organisations may struggle to commit budgets to exercises that may take a week, a month - or five and more years.
Back to Fair Play Publishing, where Bonita's operation reminded me of a model I first became aware of as a boy. I lived in Oporto and swam for F.C Porto, the F.C. standing for the 'Futebol Clube' which generated the money to subsidise a large number of other sports, swimming included.
It's like that in the Fair Play stable: some of the bigger hitters balance out the worthy books that may not have as big a readership but contribute to a rich library of work that houses a goldmine of research and resources charting the cultural history, through sport but not exclusively, and human development in Australia and through Australians that travelled far and wide around the world before their stories made it back home and into one of books backed by Bonita.
Here are some fine examples, which can be found at the Fair Play Publishing website:
Among the books just out is this by John Maynard, with themes of special significance to the history and deep history of Australia:
Our final forthcoming release for this month—just scraping-in for the month— is John Maynard's Golf Dreaming: An #Aboriginal Social, Political, Cultural and Historical Perspective of #Golf. Hear him speak about it first at @manlywritersfest. buff.ly/8YHqBe2
— Fair Play Publishing (@fairplaybooks.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T22:05:04.724Z
Fair Play Publishing's divisions include Popcorn Press, their imprint dedicated to fiction, and Pepper Press, their imprint for books about life - memoirs, culture, diversity.
Last year, when I attended the British Sports Book of the Year Awards with Sharron Davies when our book Unfair Play was shortlisted for two honours and won a popular vote prize, among the entries for best overseas book was Sally Freeman's "Get Your Tits out For The Lads":
Sally Freedman
The book offered a specific insider's take on culture within the world of football, some of the stories fear from unfamiliar, sadly, in sports far beyond the ugly side of the Beautiful Game.
And, of course, here is Bonita's own book on the Fair Play shelf, charting her experience in the football world and the "FIFA Way":
Bonita Mersiades
Of course, it's not all corruption and scandal, far from it: the Fair Play library is a large collection of fine reads, tales you'd never heard before, stories from another sport that help provide new insight on matters in your own sport.
That there are many football book's in the Fair Play catalogue is something I find easy to celebrate. It simply means that Fair Play has the budget to then support others works, such as Michelle's book with me:
Michelle Ford and Craig Lord
So, on this day, sandwiched as it is between World Book Day and International Women's Day, three cheers for Bonita Mersiades, firstly for her courage as a whistleblower. The truth will out - as it did at FIFA. And the boss of Fair Play is among those whistleblowers who understand the hard road that follows, even when the truth is known.
Brava! Bonita.
Secondly, and all the more so because that hard road can be the biggest barrier to confidence, determination and motivation out there, for the efforts she and her team go to, not only in publishing works that might otherwise never see the light of day, but backing all of that up with the Writers' Festival that was one of the highlights and great memories of 2024, which is saying a lot for a season that included a tremendous Olympic Games in Paris.
If you're lucky enough to be Sydney way at the end of this month, make sure you pick up some tickets to the Manly Writers' Festival and soak up a shot of Aussie wit, humour and an adventurers' take on the world:
Here's where you can get tickets:
