CELEBRATE 60 Years of the Adelaide Festival with Wakefield Press!

The Adelaide Festival is as much shaped by people and place as it in turn shapes people and place; its identity is a weird and wild shifting thing. It is not owned by one individual, but belongs to everyone. Right now in Adelaide we are experiencing our annual festival season, one of our favourite times of the year here at Wakefield Press! Yet this year festival season is even more special than usual! In 2020,… Continue reading

Antarctic Ideas: Hot Reads for Cold Nights

A good book is, in many ways, like a good conversation. It engages with ideas in a way that leaves you energised, knowing more than you did when you began – but still thinking and questioning. Maybe that’s why we at Wakefield feel a special affinity with the Adelaide Festival of Ideas. In the lead-up to the full festival program announcement in a few weeks, we’re remembering an event from this time last year that…

The Wakefield Press Reader's Guide to Open State

Open State festival has a packed program which kicks off on Thursday 28 September and runs through to Sunday 8 October. Publisher Michael Bollen brings you the Wakefield Press Reader's Guide to Open State. My, my. It's an eye-opener and source of pride, browsing the Open State program, reminding us how books and reading interweave past, present and future. Picking through the goodies on offer, the mind thinks inevitably, Hmm, could be a book in that. And thinks too: Now, which…

South Australia on the Eve of War

May marks the annual South Australia's History Festival. South Australia on the Eve of War was launched on Tuesday as part of the festival. Here we have an excerpt from book's introduction, written by Melanie Oppenheimer and Margrette Kleinig. Three individuals – David Unaipon, Catherine Helen Spence and Douglas Mawson – encapsulate the spirit of South Australia in the years between Federation in 1901 and the eve of war. All, too, have graced our paper currency at one point…

Jetties in the Eyre Peninsula

The wild weather last week was nothing more for many of us than an excuse to play cards by candlelight for a few hours. For some people, especially on the Eyre Peninsula, the storms were much more destructive. After seeing pictures of the battered Port Germein jetty on the news, we've been thinking about Jill Roe's memories of the area from Our Fathers Cleared the Bush … Jetties have played an important role in the history…

New poem from Geoff Goodfellow

One of the coolest things about the Wakefield community is that we get to see the latest that our bright and busy authors are producing – and then we can share it with you! This time we have new work from Geoff Goodfellow, who is in fine form this early (drizzly) spring, with a new poem musing on fashion trends in his beloved Semaphore. Just a little something to get you through your Monday. Enjoy!…