‘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
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.
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.
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.
We’re delighted to officially announce the acquisition of world rights to Libby Trainor Parker’s debut book, with the working title of Endo Days: Life, Love and Laughs with Endometriosis, which Wakefield Press will publish in 2021.
One in ten people in Australia are living with endometriosis and countless others are supporting them, caring for them, championing various treatments and being impacted by this incurable condition. Endo Days is a look at the stories of those within the endo community, as told to journalist and educator Libby Trainor Parker, who was diagnosed with endometriosis aged thirty-six, and has dedicated the past seven years to finding the lighter side of chronic illness. Endo Days is a frank, often funny and honest memoir told in a narrative journalism style, with Libby’s own story as the central narrative, drawing on interviews with others with endometriosis (both women, men and non-binary), their partners – male and female, doctors and specialists, researchers and the wider endo community.
This week features Anne Black, author of Pendragon: The life of George Isaacs, Colonial wordsmith. Anne writes about her first encounter with little-known literary icon George Isaacs, and the death certificate that sparked an obsession and a biography.
Sunburnt Veils is a smart, funny, character-based exploration of Islamophobia through a heroine who’s the kind of girl who reads at parties, but pushes herself to take a visible stand after a fellow student calls in a bomb threat on her first day of university, after she leaves a bag in a lecture theatre to take a phone call.
On 20 June, The First Wave: Exploring Early Coastal Contact History in Australia, edited by 
Danielle Clode and myself, was launched in London. This was the result of a happy convergence of circumstances: I was in the UK on an extended visit, presenting at several conferences and giving the odd lecture and seminar, and Flinders University was looking for an excuse to hold an alumni event in London. The Alumni Office at Flinders organised a splendid event in the sumptuous Downer Room at Australia House, with help from the South Australian Agent-General’s office. The Vice-chancellor, Professor Colin Stirling, flew in for the occasion, and nearly 100 people, including Flinders Alumni and many UK-based friends and colleagues, were present to see The First Wave launched into the world – a few weeks before it was even published in Australia – by the incomparable Elleke Boehmer, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Professor of World Literature at Oxford, novelist, prominent and prodigious scholar of the South and of colonial and post-colonial encounters.
The First Wave draws together 26 essays, stories, and poems from a range of authors, some of Aboriginal heritage – poets, novelists, historians, literary scholars, art historians, anthropologists, musicologists, linguists, ecologists. We wanted to include multiple perspectives on multiple encounters, in a variety of genres – concentrating on meetings with explorers – temporary visitors, rather than the settlers or invaders who came later, though it’s not so easy to draw these kinds of boundaries.
Elleke spoke at the launch with even more than her customary grace and acuity. She read some passages, including an extract from Kim Scott’s That Deadman Dance and a poem by Ali Cobby Eckermann. Referring to the genesis of the book in my exploration of the encounters described in Matthew Flinders’ accounts of his voyage, she noted
the complex fractal pattern of perspectives, observations and silent sight-lines both Indigenous and European that the co-editors Dooley and Clode had delicately constructed around Flinders’ 1801-3 journey of Australian circumnavigation. Many of these observations crystallised out from the crucial meeting on the beach, that classic zone of colonial encounter, yet at a fragile time before that encounter became violent and destructive. The First Wave also beautifully demonstrates how those observations were then recorded not only in the explorers’ journals and logbooks but also in Indigenous song and dance, so making a very different yet equally telling historical record. Dooley and Clode had achieved this fine balance by drawing together an extensive generic range of writings including some resonant contemporary poetry and were to be especially congratulated about this.
Elleke’s speech made me see the work we had done in a new light, not as merely a heterogenous collection of a variety of perspectives – which it undoubtedly is, and which was our intention – but as something which appeared, in a way, complete – which had an integrity of its own, perhaps beyond the sum of its parts. I found her words extraordinarily moving and extremely gratifying.
Alastair Niven, LVO, OBE, formerly Director of Literature at the both the British Arts Council and the British Council, now of Harris Manchester College, Oxford, kindly agreed to make some closing remarks:
‘It is a genuine privilege to take part in the launch of The First Wave. That’s the sort of politely conventional thing one says on this sort of occasion, but tonight it is really true. This is a monumental book, and I don’t just mean in terms of weight. It is an essential work of true scholarship. This book matters, re-visiting old episodes and in the process re-visioning them.’
There is a crucial if brief sentence in Gillian Dooley’s and Danielle Clode’s excellent introduction. ‘What were the Europeans NOT seeing?’ These essays examine the not seen, which includes how they were themselves viewed by the indigenous peoples they found on arrival in Australia. I don’t usually spatter my talks with Biblical references, but it’s hard not to be reminded of words we have all grown up with and know as evidence of what we define as our civilisation: ‘Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ This book helps us clarify our opaque vision.
‘Throughout The First Wave words are given new shades of meaning as a consequence of their post-colonial interrogation. Take as an example Valerie Munt’s essay ‘Sense or Sensibility? Encountering a “Savage” Land in a Romantic Era’, where every word of her title is ironic or nuanced: ‘sense’, ‘sensibility’, ‘encountering’, ‘”savage”‘ (placed in inverted commas), ‘land’, ‘Romantic’, ‘era’, even ‘or’. This is a book full of such upendings. Encounters and exchanges, footprints and landing parties are all seen afresh. Books like Robinson Crusoe, Coral Island and Lord of the Flies will never seem the same again.’
Once again, I was touched, flattered and surprised by Alastair’s kind words. I have learned
a huge amount during this project. When I first conceived of this book project, I knew I’d need a co-editor and the multi-talented Danielle Clode was my first choice, given her expertise on the French voyages to Australia and her wide and varied experience in writing and publishing. Luckily she agreed despite her overflowing schedule and she has been a wonderful partner in this enterprise, in addition to contributing her own beautifully crafted and carefully researched story about whaling on Australia’s east coast. I am grateful to every single one of the contributors for their unique accounts of a myriad of meetings, sightings and exchanges. Only one of them, Patrick Kaye, was able to be present at the London launch, but we look forward to celebrating its publication with many of the others in Adelaide soon – watch this space.
The First Wave, at over 450 pages, has turned out to be a big book, but I hope you will agree with me that its size is justified by the richness of the insights it provides.
To purchase a copy of the book, give us a call on (08) 8352 4455, visit us at our Mile End Bookshop, or find it in our online web store.
As our fearless leader, Michael Bollen, considers the daunting ‘For Official Use 
Only’ headers that have plagued his inbox as late, he also ponders his own official use as a publisher. In Diary of a Publisher, a brilliant new series launched on InDaily, Michael talks about publishing as a whole, and Wakefield Press’s ever-evolving role in the world of books.
Publishing, as Michael (and dictionaries) say, is the act of ‘making things known’. Information and stories that authors and publishers bring to the world, to make known facts, fictions, and half-lie-half-truth tales that captivate and inform us. It’s quite a grand and romantic thought then, when you really think about it. As publishers, it’s our goal to bring important stories to the fore, from South Australia’s women’s suffrage movement and the little-known woman who got it started for our small colony, to the art of absurdity and silliness, to flowers and art in Australia.
For us, Love Your Bookshop Day is a great way to meet with our customers, both old and new, and to showcase the amazing range of books we publish every year. It’s also vital to our existence; without our customers, we would not be. If we don’t exist, South Australian stories will struggle to find the spotlight they so deserve.
Local bookshops live and die by the sword of the customer, so word of mouth, events, and being different are vitally important to us. This Saturday 10 August, Wakefield Press will be open from 1.0 pm to 5.00 pm. We’re running our classic 3 for 2 special, and have a great range of new arrivals and reprinted favourites ready and waiting to be cherished. Around the traps though, there’s plenty going on. Consider supporting one of South Australia’s other independent bookshops (and huge supporters of Wakefield Press).
on Hindley street will have bubbles, cake, music and giveaways all day, as well as their wonderful range of niche and hard-to-find books in their cosy, welcoming store. You might even be lucky enough to see Wakefieldean Jo working her bookselling magic there. Ask her for a book recommendation, or see what she’s been reading recently over at InDaily.
is the Adelaide Hills favourite bookstore, although we could be a little biased. Gavin and his team will be open all day on Saturday – pop by for a great range of food and gardening books, including our own Tori Arbon and Lolo Houbein’s Magic Little Meals.
in Rundle Mall is a booklover’s dream; an emporium-like cave full to the brim of a huge range of books, it’s an old faithful for many of us. Check out the little Wakefield window in the front of the shop, and browse their wares all day. If you’re super keen, Dr Karl’s new book is launching Saturday evening as well – head to their website for more details.
Most importantly though, don’t forget the other 364 days of the year that your local bookshops exist! We love to see customers returning and telling us about books they’ve loved, or would love to see. We love getting these stories to our readers, and expanding our own knowledge and experiences, but most of all we love being here, existing, making things known.