CHRISTMAS GIFT GUIDE: Our top staff picks for Christmas
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Author Archives: Maddy Sexton
POETRY SPOTLIGHT: ‘Blessing’ by Helen Parsons
This week, we shine the poetry spotlight on Helen Parsons’ new collection, The Feeling of Bigness: Encountering Georgia O’Keeffe. The sonnets in the collection draw inspiration from Georgia O’Keeffe’s art and life, and her love for the big open spaces – the ‘feeling of bigness’ – that New Mexico offered her.
HIDDEN HISTORIES: Ivan Polyukhvoich’s case to answer
In the first instalment of our new series, Hidden Histories, intern Reem Ernst, recent Law graduate, takes a look at the shocking trial of Ivan Polyukhovich in Adelaide in 1990.
Written by journalist David Bevan, and based on his observations as a court reporter, court transcripts and witness statements,.A Case to Answer serves as a record of an astounding case in legal history both in Australia and the world.
BEHIND THE BOOKS: Fred Guilhaus on Road Rage
In this edition of Behind the Books, Fred Guilhaus answers all of our burning questions about his new novel, Road Rage.
Close friends cycle to escape the pressures of big city living. A vehicle cuts them down from behind, causing serious injury. Is this road rage, car versus bike? Or is it a copycat terrorist attack?
Road Rage challenges notions of ‘them and us’, right and wrong. In the revelations of each life’s journey, Fred Guilhaus paints a gripping tale of modern life, with remarkable twists and turns.
POETRY SPOTLIGHT: ‘This Body’ by Annette Marner
This week’s poetry spotlight shines once again on Annette Marner’s Women With Their Faces on Fire, a collection which draws on the beauty of nature to explore the experiences of women.
‘In this book you will find a passionate involvement with the land, images of love and friendship, and anger against injustice. These poems chill and delight.’ – Miriel Lenore
GUEST POST: A glimpse of Largs Jetty on a COVID-19 day
In a guest piece for the Wakefield Press blog, author and bookseller Christine Courtney casts her eye over the Largs Jetty.
A snapshot of an iconic beach captured in the pandemic’s peak in Adelaide, Christine captures in writing the nature of the beach: completely unfazed by the worries of humans, always changing, always the same.
BEHIND THE BOOKS: Jesse Pollard on Typesetting
In a very special edition of Behind the Books, apprentice typesetter Jesse Pollard writes about one of his very first typesetting experiences here at Wakefield Press. He also tries to answer a particularly difficult question: what exactly is typesetting?
SNEAK PEEK: ‘Red Sea’ by Emma Ashmere
Emma Ashmere’s recently released collection of short stories, Dreams They Forgot, is an exploration of illusion, deception, and quiet acts of rebellion.
Undercut with longing and unbelonging, absurdity and tragedy, thwarted plans and fortuitous serendipity, each story offers glimpses into the dreams, limitations, gains and losses of fragmented families, loners and lovers, survivors and misfits, as they piece together a place for themselves in the imperfect mosaic of the natural and unnatural world.
Read on for the short story ‘Red Sea’, an extract from Dreams They Forgot.
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THE BOYS FROM ST FRANCIS: An interview with Harold Thomas
In 1945, Anglican priest Father Percy Smith brought six boys from their Northern Territory home to an Adelaide beach suburb. There, they became the first boys of St Francis, a place that would house 50 such boys over 11 years. Some were sent, with the blessing of their mothers, to gain an education. Others were members of the Stolen Generations.
In their interviews with Ashley Mallett, many of these men recall Father Smith’s kindness and care. His successors, however, were often brutal, and the boys faced prejudice in a wider world largely built to exclude Indigenous Australians. The Boys from St Francis is a multi-layered tale of triumph against the odds – using the early building blocks of education and sporting prowess. Many of them went on to become fiercely effective advocates for Aboriginal causes, achieving significant progress not just for themselves, but for Aboriginal people, changing their world for the better.
In this edited extract, Harold Thomas, designer of the iconic Aboriginal flag, speaks about his time as a boy of St Francis House, and his career as an artist.
POETRY SPOTLIGHT: ‘fiona & the snow queen’ by Ali Whitelock
Our spotlight shines once again on Ali Whitelock, this time featuring a poem from her first collection published by Wakefield Press, and my heart crumples like a coke can.
‘Ali Whitelock writes a poetry of excoriating tenderness. Whitelock is Bukowski with a Glaswegian accent and a nicer wardrobe.’
– Mark Tredinnick, poet and author of The Blue Plateau, The Little Red Writing Book, Blue Wren Cantos, The Lyre Bird & Other Poems