ANNOUNCEMENT: Lana Guineay wins the October WWWC!

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…

POETRY SPOTLIGHT: ‘Courtier’ by Aidan Coleman

This week’s poetry spotlight contemplates the poem ‘Courtier’, from Aidan Coleman’s vigorous collection Mount Sumptuous. Post written by Polly Grant Butler Picking up this collection by Aidan Coleman, I was delighted to be greeted with lyrics from the Silver Jews on the acknowledgements page. I’m not usually one for describing lyrics as poetry as I believe they are two distinct mediums (and no, I do not believe a certain singer-songwriter should have won the Nobel Prize in…

BEHIND THE BOOK: Anne Black on George Isaacs

In a new series on the Wakefield Press blog, we've asked authors to write about the background, inspiration, research and work that goes into writing a book. 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.

POETRY SPOTLIGHT: 'this is coal don’t be afraid' by Ali Whitelock

In hard times, it is good to look at different ways to express ourselves, our thoughts and our feelings.This always makes me think of poetry. When things are hard to say, it sometimes helps to find someone else who can say it for you. This is exactly what happened recently during the peak of the fire crisis in Australia. Poet Ali Whitelock found a way to express her own jumbled thoughts and feelings about that… Continue reading

Book Launch: The First Wave

Gillian Dooley is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Flinders University, South Australia. Gillian is also a journal editor and the author of books and articles on literary subjects from Jane Austen to J.M. Coetzee. In this guest post she writes about the launch of The First Wave: Exploring early coastal contact history in Australia, and the book's importance in our understanding of Australian history. On 20 June, The First Wave: Exploring Early Coastal Contact History in Australia,…

Wakefield Press and Love Your Bookshop Day

Love Your Bookshop Day is all about celebrating what makes local bookshops so great (and so important)! Here at Wakefield Press, we're celebrating by opening our shop on Saturday 10 August, but the celebration is about more than just one day. 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…

An Interview With: Sara Peak, Work Experience Student

Sara, a year 10 student at Saint Peter's Girls' School, talks about books, her experiences at Wakefield Press, and the differences between boys and girls reading What is the first book you ever read? At the risk of sounding generic, the first book I ever read was Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. Before this, I lamented reading, but I was immediately drawn into the whirlwind of escapades at Hogwarts, and after reading the Harry…

An Interview With: Poppy Nwosu

In this latest author interview series, work experience student Sian Beatton interviews Poppy Nwosu, author of Making Friends with Alice Dyson. Poppy's story came runner up for the 2018 Adelaide Festival Unpublished Manuscript Award, but here at Wakefield press we thought her story too good to go unnoticed. Poppy's book is a romantic story about rumours, friendship, and discovering who you really are. How do you keep a book interesting? This is a great question! For me, I…

Stephen Orr on growing up in suburban Adelaide

The #tenyearchallenge has been dominating social media for the past few weeks, but today author Stephen Orr looks even further back in this 2006 article about his childhood in the suburbs of 1970s Adelaide. Keep an eye out for Stephen's next novel, This Excellent Machine, which will be released in April 2019. Smith Street I want to tell you about the street I grew up in. We’ll call it Smith…

An interview with: Layla Moseby Read, work experience student

Layla Moseby-Read, a year 10 student at Scotch, recently completed a week of work experience at Wakefield Press. Layla comes from a strong publishing background; her dad's book, Dear Grandpa, Why?, was published by Wakefield Press earlier this year. What is the first book you ever read? The first children’s book I ever read properly myself was called A Year on Our Farm by Penny Matthews. I had actually won the book at school and…