In October, on a dark and gloomy evening, Wakefield Press welcomed many brave punters into our bookshop for the launch of Heather Taylor-Johnson’s latest poetry collection, Alternative Hollywood Ending.

We are thrilled now to be sharing launcher Amelia Walker’s insightful and thought-provoking speech.

We’re pleased to announce the winner of the October WWWC: Lana Guineay! Lana’s response to the prompt ‘beamish boy’ draws inspiration from literature and language.

On her inspiration for her entry, Lana writes: ‘When I read this month’s competition prompt, the word “beamish” was new to me. While I could infer its meaning I wasn’t familiar with the term, and what was its association with “boy”? One Google later I found that the phrase is from Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, who seemingly thought he invented it – but in fact its first recorded English usage came from a 1530 text: John Palsgrave’s L’éclaircissement De La Langue Française. This etymology interested me much more, and its use “Beamysshe as the sonne is, radieux” called to mind one of my favourite sonnets, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 33 and its heartbreaking play on sun/son – but in this case the heart was restored and radiant. My imagination was intrigued and the words flew out!’

Read her winning entry, ‘Beamysshe’, below.

We’re thrilled and honoured to announce that Hometown Haunts: #LoveOzYA Horror Tales, edited by Poppy Nwosu, has been shortlisted for the 2022 Small Press Network Book of the Year Award (formerly the Most Underrated Book Award).

The anthology – the first #LoveOzYA collection to focus entirely on horror – unites a stellar cast of Australia’s finest YA authors with talented new and emerging voices, including two graphic artists.

Earlier this year, we were proud to announce that contributing author Lisa Fuller had won both the Best Young Adult Short Story and the Best Horror Short Story in the 2021 Aurealis Awards, an award that acknowledges excellence in speculative, horror and sci-fi fiction.

To celebrate the shortlisting, and Lisa’s wins, we’re pleased to share her excellent story ‘Don’t Look’ here on the blog.

Robert Harris is a passionate and active advocate for eduction worldwide, having founded Education International in 1993. His recently published Dancing Before Storms: Five revolutions that shaped today’s world is now being considered for addition to the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum.

In this guest post, Robert discusses the importance of teaching young people history and setting them up with the tools to recognise the hallmarks of past mistakes.

Read on below.

We’re pleased to announce the winner of the August WWWC: Janette Parr! Janette’s response to the prompt ‘my father’s gift’ is a bittersweet ode to a father with a penchant for procrastination.

Read Janette’s winning entry, ‘Tomorrow’, below.