Independent Children’s Publishers in the bright new world, 26-01-2012

Eleanor Catton talks historical fiction, murder mysteries and star charts, 24-01-2012

Ancient voices, contemporary experiences and a fully satisfying story, 20-12-2011

New festival head Anne O’Brien on expanding reader horizons, 17-11-2011

Q&A with e-book publisher Penelope Todd of Rosa Mira Books, 20-10-2011

Sarah Forster talks to The Rumpus about their inspiring online book club, 07-10-2011

Noel Murphy on publishers’ key role in nurturing new literary talent, 29-09-2011

Sarah Forster writes home from 826 Valencia - Part 2, 20-09-2011

The Sound of Small Stories: short fiction rewrites its own future, 07-09-2011

Sarah Forster writes home from 826 Valencia, 30-08-2011

Excerpt from Fiona Kidman’s speech at the 2011 Prime Minister’s Awards, 30-08-2011

Emma Gallagher talks to Anna Taylor about the allure of long short fiction, 17-08-2011

Read the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award winning entry, 11-08-2011

Lily Richards on the Rough Side of Reading, 02-08-2011

Q&A with Chloe Lane, founding editor of Hue & Cry, 19-07-2011

Hone Tuwhare: Small links in the silence, 08-07-2011

Writing at the edge of the universe?, 29-03-2011

Bernard Beckett: Playing with the rules of YA gravity, 24-02-2011

Craig Sisterson: Kiwi Crime Writing Aficionado, 24-09-2010

'Rave' about Sinclair Lewis's Main Street (1920), 29-06-2010

Sophisticated picture books, 20-05-2010

The Cover Story, 11-05-2010

Neil Cross rants about pseudononymous critics, 06-05-2010

School librarian Angela Soutar recommends The Anzac Parade, by Glenda Kane, illustrated by Lisa Allen, 06-05-2010

Laura Kroetsch rants about Jane Austen and books with dreamy covers, 06-05-2010

Independent Children’s Publishers in the bright new world

26-01-2012

Despite doomsday predictions for the publishing industry as a whole, every year several new publishers open their cottage doors in New Zealand. Many of these are children’s publishers, generating print books or, seeing the opportunities presented by e-books in a market that isn’t up to speed, books in digital format.

Dreamboat Books and Hinterlands publish only the work of the author behind the publishing name. Others, like Pear Jam Books, challenge the big guys on their own turf by publishing works by popular New Zealand authors in different formats.

What most of these publishers have in common is that they were formed by writers.

Jill Marshall is a highly successful published author, best known for her Jane Blonde: Spylet and Dogshead series’, published by Pan Macmillan in the UK. She is British, but now lives in Auckland. She began Pear Jam Publishing in 2011 with the publication of a picture book that helped to fundraise for relief funding for the Christchurch earthquake. ‘My own publishing company has been something I’ve been thinking about for quite a while,’ she says, ‘particularly with the advance of digital story-telling in the form of ebooks and apps, and my feelings as an author that I didn’t have as much control as I should.’

Pear Jam publishes fiction titles by previously published and new authors, including Jill’s most recent book Matilda Peppercorn:Manx. The concept of Pear Jam is to publish, eventually, each book in four formats – P (play), E (electronic), A (audio) and R (read, print books). While we see broad format publishing in the US in particular, it isn’t something many kiwi publishers have picked up on up until recently. Pear Jam aims to keep up with the digital times we live in.

Recently NZ Author magazine published an article by Mark Sommerset about the pros and cons of self-publishing. Mark and his wife Rowan published their first book Cork on the Ocean in 2005, which they wrote and illustrated respectively. It sold well and received great reviews. After approaching Random House NZ to help with their distribution, they were soon offered a contract by them for the Australasian rights to Cork in paperback, as well as a sequel.

In 2010, Mark and Rowan made the choice once again to publish themselves after much deliberation. Mark says they ‘couldn’t look past a few key factors that had led us down the path of independence in the first place – 1) having the freedom and opportunity to publish whatever we choose, 2) having control and taking responsibility for all parts of the publishing process and 3) a shot at making a living out of doing what we love.’ Mark and Rowan's book Baa Baa Smart Sheep went on to win 'Children's Choice' at the 2011 NZ Post Children's Book Awards.

It’s worth mentioning that Pear Jam and Dreamboat publish hand-in-hand with the author. Pear Jam Books involves authors intimately with the publication process and in marketing their books. All of the writers support and promote each other; and Jill even checked in with everybody when she wanted to publish her own book through Pear Jam – to make sure they knew it wouldn’t get special treatment for being hers!

Johanna Knox and her partner Walter Moala created Hinterlands in 2011 to publish Johanna’s series The Flypapers Series, beginning with her first book The Flytrap Snaps. Johanna writes the books and they contract Sabrina Malcolm to illustrate them. The first book in the series had fantastic reviews and was praised in particular by John McIntyre from the Children’s Bookshop in Kilbirnie, Wellington. Johanna says, ‘having relationships with individual booksellers has been so valuable. I think that when you’re a new publisher – or author – and don’t have a name, the best thing you can do is find and work with booksellers who take a hands-on approach to their business and love matching books with customers.’

Publisher David Ling began a children’s book imprint, Duck Creek Press in 2010, 20 years after starting his own publishing house, David Ling Publishing. His impetus for beginning the imprint was that he held the manuscript for Maurice Shadbolt’s The Mountain Who Wanted to Live in a House, had found the right illustrator for it, and didn’t want to have just one lonely book on the children’s list. 'I also thought I could see gaps in the style of picture books that were being published,’ he says. He has published six titles thus far, one of which, A Dog Like That!, was shortlisted for the 2011 NZ Post Children’s book awards.

Small presses and self-publishers may once have been overlooked, but no longer. With enthusiastic, skilled publishers like those mentioned here, the future of outside-the-box publishing is in safe hands. They show that conviction doesn’t rely on having a multinational brand at your back so much as the passion and commitment to share stories with the world in the ways readers are eager for.

Feature article by Book Council Education Manager Sarah Forster.
 

Eleanor Catton talks historical fiction, murder mysteries and star charts

24-01-2012

Eleanor Catton is currently completing her second novel, The Luminaries. The book is set in New Zealand during the gold rush era of the 1860s and has a strong astrological bent. In a Q&A with the author here, Catton said that she collated mid 1860s New Zealand star charts and, along with other astrological information, used the charts to inform the shape of the novel. Also, there's a murder mystery involved. We ask Catton a few questions about her intriguing multilayered second book.

Photo credit: Robert Catto

You’re writing your second book, which is set in 1860s New Zealand, but is it historical fiction in the usual sense?

I wish that there wasn’t a 'usual sense'! I am disappointed by the fact that most books that fall under the genre category of 'historical fiction' are more or less homogenous in terms of style, and even worse, in terms of the general mindset of their principal characters. I think that fiction of all kinds ought to try and change the reader’s relation to the world, and most contemporary works of 'historical fiction' only reinforce whichever attitudes towards history are currently in vogue.

Do you think there’s room for certain kinds of strangeness to creep into a narrative when the past is being evoked and described?

There’s always room for strangeness! The past is strange. It ought to be strange. If it doesn’t feel strange, you’re probably describing the present.

You intriguingly described The Luminaries as 'an astrological murder mystery'. What drew you to the astrological?

When this book was still a scrap of an idea, I encountered another writer who was a staunch defender of astrology. I asked her whether there was one star sign that was less like itself than any of the others — that is, one star sign that was the hardest to pin down and diagnose. She laughed and said, “That is such a Libra question.” I felt disarmed that she’d guessed my sign correctly, and a little vexed, I suppose, that she hadn’t given me a definite answer. So I bought a couple of books and looked into it myself.

I’d always not-quite-dismissed astrology as superstitious maybe-nonsense, and I wasn’t reading to be converted. So I was surprised to find real psychological insight and wisdom and even philosophy in the stories behind the stars. I was surprised to be fascinated, in a way, and surprised that my appreciation for the discipline began to deepen. I love the endless regeneration of the zodiac: the way that each sign responds to, and even rejects, the principles of the sign that precedes it; the way that change occurs in cycles; the smaller subsets of three and four that exist within the twelve; the patterning.

Can you name one of the more inventive murder mysteries you’ve read?

I think James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity is a perfect crime novel. I adore Raymond Chandler and Graham Greene. Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White was a huge influence on The Luminaries, but I think my biggest murder-mystery debts are to Murder on the Orient Express and The Brothers Karamazov.

When you sit down at your desk you notice…?

I actually can’t work at a desk — I prefer to write in bed, or on a long couch where I can put my feet up. Right now I’m sitting up in bed. I can see over the Canterbury plains to the Kaikouras, but there’s haze in the sky today and the mountains are only very faintly visible. There’s a kereru love-triangle playing out in the tree beside the house, and I can hear bellbirds.

Read more about Eleanor Catton and her award-winning first book The Rehearsal in her Book Council Writers File here. You can also read an excerpt from Catton’s up-coming novel The Luminaries in the latest issue of New Zealand Books.

Ancient voices, contemporary experiences and a fully satisfying story

20-12-2011

Tina Makereti interviewed by Rachel O'Neill

The stories in Tina Makereti’s first collection Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa bring to life vulnerable gods and goddesses, children born with remarkable gifts, and spectacular birds with marvellously bad timing. As Makereti is a regular voice on Twitter, I asked her to describe Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa in one Tweet. ‘Mythical characters appear, cultures coexist, but in these stories the gods live in a contemporary world & are motivated by human concerns,’ she replied.

The stories in Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa are rich with contemporary insight – from the strong yet temporary bond between a kuia and a boy she finds abandoned in a park, to a woman who catches the flicker of unknowability in her lover’s eye. The contemporary flavour of a book often comes from the way it challenges certain assumptions about literature itself and Makereti agrees, ‘I'm excited that a number of writers are unpicking the way things have been written about before, particularly history,’ she said.

‘What I like now is that literature seems to be moving toward something I've seen described as a search for authenticity. This shouldn't be mixed up with essentialism in any way. In my mind it's a move away from intellectualism and back towards a sort of emotional gravity or intensity that makes a fully satisfying story. Some of the most exciting writing I've seen recently is Pacifica or indigenous. I'm looking forward to reading That Deadman Dance, and Kim Scott's other work, as I'm chairing his session at the Writers & Readers Week in Wellington in March.’

Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa has won several accolades since publication, including the inaugural Fiction award at Ngā Kupu Ora 2011, the third Māori Book Awards. It has also been selected for showcase at the Frankfurt Book Fair, when New Zealand will be guest of honour in 2012. In recent press about Frankfurt, Makereti mentioned that ‘there are many sides to being Māori’ and that she hoped to reflect this through her writing and contribute to a greater diversity within Māori literature. Who inspires her approach to writing, and how? I asked. ‘I guess what that diversity statement points to is that I'm inspired by a multitude of people and places. That's not a very precise answer, but I find it difficult to limit myself.

‘What I like most is to be surprised, to be taken somewhere unpredictable by writing. That, and a really good sentence (which is also best when it surprises). It seems to be our impulse to go with a safe bet, a sure thing, in terms of what we buy/read and what the industry promotes, even in terms of what is deemed to be 'Māori'. I'm really proud of New Zealand writing. I think it's amazing. Even so, I think there could be a lot more diversity. Who are we leaving out?’

And is she at work on her second book? Will it be very different from her first collection? ‘I'm just finishing a novel called Rēkohu Story,’ she said. ‘It's different because it's not a collection of short stories, but similar because it's still concerned with origins and ancient voices and contemporary experiences and how all of these things interrelate. I'm excited to have been able to write the book because it tells the story of three different sets of characters, all who are either Moriori or closely linked to that culture, which is an amazing aspect of New Zealand history and society that is still misrepresented or misunderstood by most of us.’

When I asked her what begins to happen when the contemporary and more distant memories, myths and murmurings across time are mingled, she said, ‘it could be that you're starting to tap into something that is greater than yourself. We all have access to these archetypes, in one form or another.

‘When we pay attention to them,’ she added, ‘we open up to something deeper and more ancient and probably wiser than our contemporary experiences. The myths I looked at interacted with stories of contemporary lives in ways that were completely unpredictable to me. That made writing feel like a discovery. It also, I think, enabled the stories to have greater reach.’

You can read more about Tina Makereti in her New Zealand Book Council Writers file, which links to her website, as well as several reviews of Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa. You can also follow her on twitter @TinaMakereti

New festival head Anne O’Brien on expanding reader horizons

17-11-2011

We ask Anne O’Brien, recently appointed as Director of the 2012 Auckland Writers & Readers Festival, a few questions about deepening the reading life, what’s exciting her about Kiwi literature, and her most memorable reads.

1. In what ways do literary festivals inspire readers to nurture their reading life?
Literary festivals do two things for the reader: they deepen the experience of reading particular work and they expand reading horizons. The beauty of a literary festival is that it acts as a trusted curator, effectively facilitating a pop-up community of readers. Focus on particular works can illuminate the storytelling and tease out texture and meaning. Placing individual sessions within a diverse festival menu of the much-loved and the yet-to-be-discovered also encourages readers to sample the new. With its breadth of genre, geography, gender and gaze, a literary festival acts as a ‘matchmaker’, both broadening and deepening the reading life.

2. What excites you most about New Zealand literature at the moment?
Beautifully crafted storytelling, moving beyond geographical boundaries and a contentious ‘national literature’ definition, towards a more global view which weaves cultural origins with broad reach.

3. What motivates you to increase conversation around books?
Reading builds reflective, engaged and nourished human beings. I’m passionate about the cultivation of the intellectual life to create a more engaged, imaginative and thinking society. In an age when a lot of media has pulled away from substantive discourse, it is the world of literature and stories where people can examine and reflect on theirs and others’ experience, gain new understandings and grow both personally and in relation to the wider world.

4. Some people say that certain songs take them back to formative times in their life. Are there books that you’ve read that are evocative for you in this way?
Too many to list but here is a random selection:

Two Miffy books by Dick Bruna proudly selected and purchased by me at the age of four with a book token I won in a Sunday newspaper colouring-in competition.

Peter Pan, which my mother would read to us from a large old hardback as we sat on the bed beside her.

Six O’Clock Saints, crazy tales of brave warrior women who stood against the forces of evil and sacrificed their lives for their Lord which I read repeatedly during my late primary years.

The Snow Goose, from my third form year, which I couldn’t read without sobbing.

The thick blue 12 volume set of Chambers’s Encyclopaedia and the Life Series geography and subject books which formed the background to many years worth of school projects.

Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man at university, alongside David Lodge’s How Far Can You Go (a hilarious touchstone in my Catholic student days) and the trenchant feminist novel The Women’s Room by Marilyn French.

A Suitable Boy, read on the balcony outside my Indian guest house room where I lived for three months in 2004.

My personally inscribed copy of Leonard Cohen’s Book of Mercy, gifted to me as I unsuccessfully pursued him first for a Radio NZ interview and later for a Writers Festival appearance.

Peter Matthiesen’s The Snow Leopard which reminds me of the glorious Himalayas where I trekked in 2001.

5. New Zealand writers often work across different forms, but it also seems international writers do this too. Why do you think writers explore so many different forms these days? What does this say about how we are engaging with storytelling?
I’m not sure that this is a new phenomenon. The life of the artist is, by its very nature, one of exploration, and diversifying into other strands of an art form is a well-established way of expressing new ideas. Visual artists, for example, often work across a range of media. So, whilst some practitioners find their creative growth through intensive specialisation, narrowing down to the particular, others find it in pushing boundaries and exploring different forms. Engagement with story crosses these boundaries - power rests in the execution.



 

Q&A with e-book publisher Penelope Todd of Rosa Mira Books

20-10-2011

In a recent blog post Book Council Chief Executive Noel Murphy quoted Stephen Page from a talk the Faber & Faber CEO gave in Australia about the digital future of publishing:

“At the start of the talk,” Noel wrote, “Stephen compared the digital transition to riding the rapids toward a waterfall with those in the publishing raft watching music and film disappear over the precipice. He then described the publishers on the raft looking at each other and asking ‘do you think there’s a tributary?’ It’s strange that nearly two years on from that lecture, people are still asking that question. The mass market is going digital right now and the ‘smell of books’ is not going to stop it. Publishing and bookselling are going over the digital Niagara Falls. The trick will be to survive it.”

Noel went on to argue that while many publishers are working with new technology and pursuing fresh ways of connecting books and readers, they remain committed to what we all want—quality reading experiences.

This is reflected locally, with publishers putting down digital roots and offering e-book publishing without compromising on what makes great reads great. E-book publisher Rosa Mira Books is new to the scene, founded earlier this year by New Zealand author and editor Penelope Todd. From the outset Todd said that the strength of Rosa Mira Books would lie in its attention to quality writing, editing and design. She was iterating that e-book publishing doesn’t mean stinting on tried-and-true publishing standards.

The Book Council's Rachel O'Neill asks Penelope Todd a few questions about her experience in e-book publishing so far, as well as what, for her, makes reading an irreplaceable experience.

1. What have been some of the highlights for you since launching Rosa Mira Books?
Interacting with authors and immersing myself in their work as I read or edit; launching the beautiful Rosa Mira website, along with Dorothee Kocks's gorgeous novel, The Glass Harmonica: a sensualist's tale in January this year; and hearing from satisfied readers and reviewers. I've had a huge amount of encouragement and interest from the book community—from writers, readers and publishers—even though that hasn't converted directly into sales yet! I enjoy writing the Rosa Mira blog, and stretching my extrovert muscles on social media and marketing exercises.

2. What do you find most exciting about e-book publishing?
The fact that with very few material resources but plenty of oomph I could start looking for manuscripts I loved and begin to publish them from the kitchen table. Although constrained so far by the need to make money by other means, I'm excited by the nimble-footed medium—no office, no trees felled, no stacks of books to process and move around the country or the world. The turn-around from manuscript to published e-book is potentially a quick one—except that I choose to take great care with the selection, editing, and design of each. Unlike many New Zealand hard copy books, which are lucky if they make distribution to Australia, digital books are instantly available to a global market.

3. When did the idea for Rosa Mira Books first spark for you?
The very first spark came out of the blue, or rather the black of night. I woke up about three years ago and enjoyed some very lucid minutes understanding that I would do this one day. The concept gained traction late in 2009 when Longacre Press for whom I worked as an editor was subsumed by Random House and I lost my job.

4. Which publishers and/or their online activities are currently inspiring you?
I'm indebted first of all to Barbara Larson at Longacre Press, who published and employed me as an editor. Longacre was a wonderful place to work and I aspire to match its high production values with Rosa Mira Books.

As for other publishers, I'm a bit of a magpie, picking up bits from here and there. I'm quietly in awe of what Julia Marshall is doing with Gecko Press, but I'm still casting around to see a digital-first publisher who's doing exactly what I am. As for online presence, Victoria University Press’ (VUP) Helen Heath helped me and our authors to learn the social media ropes for the launch of our second book Slightly Peculiar Love Stories, and I'm impressed by VUP's active online presence which I believe is largely thanks to her.

5. I’ve often thought that editors are the unsung heroes of successful books. Do you agree that while the way we are reading is changing, we continue to want to read the best quality stories?
As a writer, I prize a good editor and wouldn't dream of publishing without one. I assume most authors and readers feel the same—wanting work of high quality to be as carefully and beautifully presented as it deserves to be. In this sense, Rosa Mira Books is different from Smashwords or Amazon where anything, whatever its merit, can be uploaded for sale.

6. What do you think is so special about reading, no matter if the storytelling experience happens on paper, as a podcast or on screen?
It's a bit like the 'living' experience. Depending on what we choose to read or engage with, we make it as rich or bland, as stretching or comforting as we choose. Personally I always want to be stretched when I read—to have my ideas and psyche, my sense of language, of others, and of the world at large, opened out and enriched. Reading offers us portals to a larger life.

I think that the perfect e-reading device has yet to be created, but I'm amused that so many people who, a year or two ago swore off anything but 'paper', have been seduced by the iPad or Kindle and now move smoothly between reading mediums. Whatever we're reading in or on, it works if we're able to forget the means and enter the world that's been written.

7. What is coming up for Rosa Mira Books?
I'm currently proof-reading Road Markings—An Anthropologist in the Antipodes by New Zealand-born, Harvard-based Michael Jackson. It's a sumptuous read that reflects on his recent road trip through New Zealand. If I can have it ready to publish by Rosa Mira's first birthday in January, I'll be happy.

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You can read Noel Murphy’s full blog post here. Find out more about Rosa Mira Books by visiting their website or blog.