Tamsien
West

THE BABBLING BIBLIOPHILE: Whether she’s reading about words, talking about words or writing about words, Tamsien West is a wordsmith of the highest order.

Current work

Founder of the multi-platform book blog, ‘Babbling Books’, Tamsien inspires her followers to achieve their personal goals through a shared love of books. Whether she’s reviewing the latest in book releases, sharing her passion for journaling or snapping gorgeous images of books, Tamsien’s authentic social media presence connects with readers from across the globe.

Working alongside major literature organisations, Tamsien has experience hosting social events and workshops with Milligram, the University of Melbourne and RMIT University. Partnering with Australian publishing houses including Penguin Random House and Hachette, Tamsien’s creative skills and strong social media presence makes her one of the most sought-after young talents in the publishing industry today.

Previous experience

Development Executive: Tamsien West has 2 years experience as a Development Executive at Melbourne Writers Festival. Securing and managing partnerships with major government and corporate stakeholders, including telecommunications company Belong and State Government Initiative 'Study Melbourne'.

Corporate Sustainability: Tamsien spent 3 years with Forest Stewardship Council of Australia & New Zealand, primarily as Corporate Sustainability & Membership Lead. This key account management position supported the sustainability work of major Australian consumer brands such as Officeworks, Bunnings, and Aldi, and led the delivery of national and international marketing campaigns.

Dean: She also work as Dean of the Awesome Foundation, Melbourne chapter, for three years which facilitates the monthly donation of $1000 grants to local projects that make a difference in the community.

Founder: Founder of Babbling Books, which contains 4 years of daily content on Instagram, has an audience of 31.8k highly engaged readers and artists. Tamsien organised and facilitated multiple creative journaling workshops under the Babbling Books name, and developed creative content designed to inspire and motivate.

Facilitator: Tamsien facilitated a session on children’s literature at Willylit, the Williamstown Literature Festival. Spoke on the topic of Social Media and the Self for Emerging Writers Festival, and will be hosting three conversation on young adult, chosen families, and writing fantasy worlds literature at Melbourne Writers Festival in September.

Awards: Winner of 2011 Australian Institute of Project Management: Community Project Writing Competition. Current member of the Partnerships Sub-Committee Member, Arts Advisory Board, City of Greater Dandenong.

Education: Bachelor of Arts (International Studies) - minor in Japanese. Diploma of Community Development.

Boards: Partnerships Sub-Committee Member, Arts Advisory Board, City of Greater Dandenong (Current)
Dean of Awesome Foundation Melbourne (Aug 2013 - Jul 2016)
Board member Awesome Foundation Melbourne (2017)

Work: Tamsien has previously worked at Melbourne Writers Festival (Arts non-profit), Forest Stewardship Council Australia & New Zealand (Environmental non-profit), and in an Oxfam retail store. She has also volunteered for Oxfam, and the Fairtrade Association of Australian and New Zealand.

Partnerships

Bupa: Tamsien was part of this influencer campaign to support engagement with under 30's about changes to Australian health insurance. She created bespoke content pieces, including a thematically linked blog post on taking care of yourself as a creative, interactive Instagram story sequences and supporting Instagram feed posts.

Williamstown Literature Festival: Multi-faceted influencer campaign to drive engagement with 25-35 year old audience in a local literary festival. Tamsien wrote and published a blog post highlighting key events in the program, supporting the campaign with Instagram feed posts and interactive Story content in the lead up to the event. On-the-ground social media coverage of the event for the two days of the Festival, including live-tweeting of events, Instagram Story, to create buzz and amplify Festival reach. Supported the Festival by moderating a panel discussion about writing for children in the age of digital media.

Australian Library & Information Association: Tamsien developed concepts in response to a brief, then shot, edited and delivered campaign photography for Reading Hour Australia 2018 for distribution across their channels. Distribution included social media feed posts, ads, eNews, website banner images and blog posts, as part of a month-long Australia-wide campaign.

Others: She has also worked with many large clients in an influencer capacity, including Hachette Australia to launch their crime reading platform Maximum Sentence.