Now this one’s cool! Why are we launching our latest title in Chennai, India, you ask? Click here to find out!
Launch in Chennai
Reply
Macquarie Dictionary – adjective /doʊp/ (say dohp) 9. (Colloquial) excellent: a dope book; so dope!
Words are the tits, really. Australian English especially so, as the folks at Macquarie Dictionary will tell you. And now their editor Susan Butler’s got a blog, and it is awesome. Ever wanted to know the difference between a taboo and a derogatory word? Suze has you covered, with colourful examples. Wanna know the history of Aus usage of youse? Ms Butler has the answers.
Not only that, but you also get to vote for the Word of the Year 2013, which I am disproportionately excited about. The ‘Colloquial’ category is amazeballs (–adjective 2. very astonishing: an amazeballs day out).
Doesn’t get better than that.
For we are girt by sea
Get on it kidlets!:
Fear (no more) the heat o’ the sun
Urgh. Day Five of the great 2014 heatwave rolls on. The horror, the horror.
Time to pull out the big guns.
Four part series. Available immediately online. Got your attention yet?
First read this summary of book one. Then go here. Purchase.
Now start reading. By the time you look up, I promise, all this horrible weather will be over.
Don’t worry, you can thank me later.
Dead by Friday extract
Derek Pedley’s a man with a taste for the darker side of life. His award-winning true crime books are gripping, mesmerising – and occasionally terrifying, when he reminds us what even the most ordinary of folk are capable of.
Dead by Friday recounts a tale of murder and adultery that gripped Adelaide over ten years ago. Shortlisted for the Ned Kelly True Crime Award (the nation’s highest true crime honour), Dead by Friday tells the full story of what happened in the Carolyn Matthews murder case of 2001. With a cast of unbelievable characters – including the hitman who ate his contract in a sandwich! – Pedley skillfully and entertainingly manoeuvres his readers through the details of the case.
It’s an amazing book, but if you’d rather try before you buy: a long extract can be found here.
Tricks to survive a heatwave …
The holidays are most definitely over. And we’re into Day Two of the great 2014 heatwave (fingers crossed this is the only one!). We all need a good book to get us through.
Thank goodness for Iola Mathews, then! Chequered Lives is the hottest off-est the press at the minute, and it’s already flying out the door. Telling the story of John Barton Hack and Stephen Hack, and the early days of South Australia, it’s fascinating, incredibly well researched and incredibly well written, too!
Or, if you need a book with a cool name, there’s always Sea Change, our incredibly popular (and beautiful) history of the City of Holdfast Bay. Recently reprinted to keep up with demand, this book is perfect for a slow read on a hot afternoon.
You can almost feel the sea breeze on your face …
And if that doesn’t appeal, we’ve only got one more suggestion.
Can’t go wrong!
An important message from a young WP fan —
We’ll be back on January 6!
Book Fair Success!
What a weekend it was!
Don Pyatt Hall looked incredible, thanks to Liz, who spent hours sewing bunting (so cool, right?) and finding the perfect decorations.
Then, the books themselves, all marked down and arranged neatly due to the enormous efforts of Trevor, our sales rep extraordinaire, and Jonny, warehouse manager and backbone of all WP’s operations.
But the best part of the whole weekend was the authors! We kicked the weekend off with Rodney Fox’s launch, and that guy can tell a yarn. The hall was in stitches for his speech, then they queued up for ages to get their books signed by the man himself.
Other highlights included Lisa Fabry’s talk on the guilt-free benefits of vegan desserts, which had us all drooling, and Derek Pedley’s explanation of the process behind Dead by Friday — an amazing book and an amazing author. Valerie Volk’s fascinating writing processes were explained, and Jude Aquilina treated us to a couple of readings. Bruce Munday explained all things stone walls and Margaret Merrilees gave an excellent overview of her work, The First Week, while Sharon Kernot explained the processes behind the creation of the world in Underground Road.
And, of course, we left Don Pyatt Hall on Sunday night with a lot less books than we’d arrived with on Friday, already talking about how we’ll do it all next year.
Thanks all for coming, enjoying, giving talks or just sipping wine. It’s lovely to have such a great bunch of people reading and interested in Wakefield titles, and it warms the cockles of our Wakefieldian hearts to know that more than a few of you will be reading our books over the break!
Publisher Profile – Michael Bollen
The very last of our profiles for the upcoming Wakefield Press Book Fair is not an author, but our very own publisher, Michael Bollen.
Michael is publisher and director at Wakefield Press, where he has worked for 20-odd years. This version of the company was started in 1989 (the fifth incarnation of Wakefield Press, if you can believe it) which means Wakefield has a 25th birthday coming up in 2014. Michael works across all areas of Wakefield, from editing to finance to marketing, and knows the business inside and out.
As Wakefield releases around 40 new titles each year across fiction, true stories, history, food and art, Michael has a large backlist to keep track of – as well as a formidable range of general knowledge!
There is no one in South Australia who knows more about the publishing business than Michael does, and he is an invaluable member of the SA creative community. He’s also a great source of information about the publishing industry, which is why he has been roped in to give a couple of talks during the Wakefield Press Book Fair. You can catch Michael at the fair at 11.00 am on Saturday 14 December or at 1.00 pm on Sunday 15 December.
Come armed with your questions! This is your opportunity to get the inside scoop on what’s happening in the industry, and to find out about the process of publishing your book.
New books, and three sleeps til the fair!
Things are ripping along over here at Wakefield Press HQ. We all know that the lead up to Christmas is the busiest time of the year, but this year we decided to challenge ourselves by bringing out a bunch of new books at the same time. Johnny in the warehouse is getting a workout!
First things first: you’ve all had a peek at Janis Sheldrick’s superb Nature’s Line: George Goyder, Surveyor, Environmentalist, Visionary by now, and bought a few copies for Christmas presents (not yet? Don’t worry, let us help you out with that). This one has been flying off the shelves since it arrived late last month.
Then, of course, you’ve all seen Rodney Fox’s joy at the final version of Sharks, the Sea and Me, an extraordinary autobiography about his extraordinary life. This one will be launched at our book fair extravaganza, which is only three sleeps from now.
In the last few days, we’ve also welcomed in stock of Liz Harfull’s Almost an Island: The Story of Robe, which details the history of the Limestone Coast town alongside beautiful images (see the gorgeous cover to the left). There have been a lot of people eagerly awaiting the arrival of this title, with Harfull’s Blue Ribbon Cookbook one of Wakefield’s most popular titles from the last few years, and Australian winner of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, in the Best Easy Recipes category.
Last but certainly not least, there’s also Don Loffler’s Holden Days, the hardback reprint of the latest Holden title from Loffler’s extremely popular series. Something to flick through and think about while the productivity commission rolls on.