Our Books
Learning to Love in Winter
Angelo Letizia
Angelo Letizia
In this thoughtful, confronting collection, Letizia faces life in the bleak, hard winters of the Northeastern United States, an environment which forces its people to acknowledge oblivion and to look for meaning in the experience. If meaning is often out of reach, the poet still looks to build, love, create, teach, learn and to record the effort, facing down oblivion "perhaps out of instinct, habit, conditioning, or simply because there is nothing else to do".
This collection is not a record of triumph, but a record of resilience and the of the moments when life lived in knowledge of oblivion still masters it, however briefly.
This collection is not a record of triumph, but a record of resilience and the of the moments when life lived in knowledge of oblivion still masters it, however briefly.
Read an extract...
A Material Rain
Jonas Kyle-Sidell
Jonas Kyle-Sidell
Deeply personal and deeply political, the poems of Kyle-Sidell in A Material Rain are a record, analysis, and critique of current American society. His poetry describes the rage of the impotent, the impotence of the disengaged, and the numbing fog of cynical self-regard that blankets his country.
He spares no one - politicians, lobbyists, the wielders of interest, the indifferent - but always, his most unflinching, most searching examination is turned on himself. He is always looking for the glimmer of an answer, for something with which he can arm himself and those he cares for, to make sense, to give hope, to point the way.
He spares no one - politicians, lobbyists, the wielders of interest, the indifferent - but always, his most unflinching, most searching examination is turned on himself. He is always looking for the glimmer of an answer, for something with which he can arm himself and those he cares for, to make sense, to give hope, to point the way.
Read an extract...
Living Fossils are the Happiest Kind
Howard V. Hendrix
Howard V. Hendrix
Living Fossils are the Happiest Kind is a rare collection: it is both deeply thoughtful and hugely thought provoking. It is written with a masterly poetic skill: spare, exact, clever. It selects its subjects from among the most urgent problems facing our world, and it treats them with an astonishing mixture of scientific understanding, humour, compassion, and just a hint of world weariness.
But this is no dry, didactic diatribe. The entire collection is infused with the poet's love of the natural world, his fascination and frustration with our own species, and a richly humorous outlook which elevates the whole collection with a gentle optimism.
But this is no dry, didactic diatribe. The entire collection is infused with the poet's love of the natural world, his fascination and frustration with our own species, and a richly humorous outlook which elevates the whole collection with a gentle optimism.
Read an extract...
Two Tongue World
Maria Koukouvas
Maria Koukouvas
Two Tongue World is a richly evocative collection of poems by the Greek/Australian poet, Maria Koukouvas. Sub titled, The Diaspora Dialogues, the poems are indeed a dialogue between past and present, between the cultures of origin and upbringing, between the generations of a family.
Deeply personal, these poems will strike a chord with everyone affected by the migrant experience and will enlighten and enthral those who have not had to live through the upheaval of migration. Koukouvas unflinchingly confronts the pain and exhultation of growing up in the baffling world of the new migrant. She chronicles her growing up at once enveloped and estranged from the culture of her origin, the pain of trying to fit into a new world, and the maturation of a love and acceptance of the cultures, new and old, which have shaped her.
This is an important collection. Koukouvas brings a wonderfully sharp observation to her poems. They are at once clever, poignant, loving, enraged, joyful, and profound.
Deeply personal, these poems will strike a chord with everyone affected by the migrant experience and will enlighten and enthral those who have not had to live through the upheaval of migration. Koukouvas unflinchingly confronts the pain and exhultation of growing up in the baffling world of the new migrant. She chronicles her growing up at once enveloped and estranged from the culture of her origin, the pain of trying to fit into a new world, and the maturation of a love and acceptance of the cultures, new and old, which have shaped her.
This is an important collection. Koukouvas brings a wonderfully sharp observation to her poems. They are at once clever, poignant, loving, enraged, joyful, and profound.
Read an extract...
Red Rite Hand
Adrian Harte
Adrian Harte
Adrian Harte's poetry collection is a startling and intense exploration of the poet in his world, with poems of humour, love, and trauma.
Harte dissects and examines life with honesty and courage and a baffled outrage at the inhumanity of much of the modern world.
Richly evocative, Red Rite Hand is a triumphant first collection, remarkable for the poetic skill of the writer and the control and passion of his work.
Harte dissects and examines life with honesty and courage and a baffled outrage at the inhumanity of much of the modern world.
Richly evocative, Red Rite Hand is a triumphant first collection, remarkable for the poetic skill of the writer and the control and passion of his work.
Read an extract...
Point Blank
Gary Duehr
Gary Duehr
Point Blank is a poetry vérité collection of observational poems, written in an immediate, cinematic style. Gary Duehr has an engaging, conversational tone that disguises the poetic craftsmanship of his work. He uses rhyme and half-rhyme with the rhythms of everyday speech to present vignettes of the lives around a detached observer. It creates a complex, nuanced portrait of modern life: think handheld Super 8 movies of apparently random incidents and lives, spliced together to create an intriguing revelation of how we live.
Gary Duehr has created a collection that is immensely enjoyable, clincially accurate, and hypnotically contemplative.
Gary Duehr has created a collection that is immensely enjoyable, clincially accurate, and hypnotically contemplative.
Let the Baby Sleep
Patrick T. Reardon
Patrick T. Reardon
Let the Baby Sleep is a fearlessly exploratory collection of poems. The poet, Patrick T. Reardon, dissects the world of his childhood, his upbringing, his relationships with his parents and siblings, his maturation and growth, and the wrenching shock of his brother’s suicide. With extraordinary skill and grace, he exposes the worlds—physical, mental, spiritual—that he inhabited and is forced still to inhabit, and asks us to confront them with him.
This is a rare collection. Reading these poems feels like a privilege that should be reserved for the poet and his family, but the warmth, generosity, humour, and love that permeates the whole is offered without reservation. The poems are, by turns, gentle, harrowing, contemplative, heartfelt, but always insistently demonstrative, insistently declarative. There is no turning away.
This is a rare collection. Reading these poems feels like a privilege that should be reserved for the poet and his family, but the warmth, generosity, humour, and love that permeates the whole is offered without reservation. The poems are, by turns, gentle, harrowing, contemplative, heartfelt, but always insistently demonstrative, insistently declarative. There is no turning away.
Read an extract...
The Long and Short of It
H.T. Grossen
H.T. Grossen
The Long and Short of It is a recto-verso book of poetry: the book is formatted to be read from either side. There are no page numbers in the book as the poet has structured the collection by the line length of the poems. From one side (the 'long' side), the poems are arranged from longest to shortest. On the other side, the poems are arranged from shortest to longest.
This is no mere curiosity of the typesetter's art, however. The poet has delivered an intriguing and revealing set of poems which take the reader from the immediate and striking short poems to the contemplative and complex longer poems. Or vice versa.
As the poet advises:
Please feel free to start from either side of the book.
As you read please adjust your perspective accordingly.
This is no mere curiosity of the typesetter's art, however. The poet has delivered an intriguing and revealing set of poems which take the reader from the immediate and striking short poems to the contemplative and complex longer poems. Or vice versa.
As the poet advises:
Please feel free to start from either side of the book.
As you read please adjust your perspective accordingly.
Read an extract...
Artful Women
Helen Cerne
Helen Cerne
Artful Women is a collection of poems celebrating the achievements of women in Art.
Helen Cerne casts an inquisitorial eye over the roles women have played (or to which they have been relegated) and presents a work that is simultaneously joyful, wonderous, admiring, outraged, angry, playful, and deeply personal.
This is a remarkable collection of poems, and one which is certain to have you discovering new artists, re-examining the art you thought you knew, and possibly even insisting that a few old boys share their pedestals with the women who worked alongside them.
Helen Cerne casts an inquisitorial eye over the roles women have played (or to which they have been relegated) and presents a work that is simultaneously joyful, wonderous, admiring, outraged, angry, playful, and deeply personal.
This is a remarkable collection of poems, and one which is certain to have you discovering new artists, re-examining the art you thought you knew, and possibly even insisting that a few old boys share their pedestals with the women who worked alongside them.
Like Scavenger Birds
Martha Landman
Martha Landman
Martha Landman is a poet who writes on Kaurna land in Adelaide, South Australia. Her poems have been published in journals and anthologies in Australia, the UK, US, and South Africa.
In her new collection, ‘Like Scavenger Birds’, she explores themes of identity, belonging, love, loss, ageing, and resilience, drawing on and finding resounding echoes in the richness and variety of life in Australia and Africa.
This is a generous and thoughtful collection by a new star of Australian poetry. With vivid imagery and lyrical language, she invites her readers on a journey of discovery and reflection as she scavenges for meaning and beauty in the physical landscape and in the complexities of human relationships.
In her new collection, ‘Like Scavenger Birds’, she explores themes of identity, belonging, love, loss, ageing, and resilience, drawing on and finding resounding echoes in the richness and variety of life in Australia and Africa.
This is a generous and thoughtful collection by a new star of Australian poetry. With vivid imagery and lyrical language, she invites her readers on a journey of discovery and reflection as she scavenges for meaning and beauty in the physical landscape and in the complexities of human relationships.
Speakeasy
Ellie Cottrell
Ellie Cottrell
Speakeasy is the first collection of Perth poet, Ellie Cottrell. It is a sparkling work, presented in two parts: Conceal and Reveal.
'Conceal' groups poems of self-doubt, of longing, of regret. 'Reveal' answers those poems in a celebration of love, lust, and the joy of life shared and explored. Although these poems are engagingly joyful and immediately appealing, they repay careful reading and re-reading. This short collection announces a wonderfully skilled new poet.
Add this new chapbook to your collection of brilliant new Australian poetry!
'Conceal' groups poems of self-doubt, of longing, of regret. 'Reveal' answers those poems in a celebration of love, lust, and the joy of life shared and explored. Although these poems are engagingly joyful and immediately appealing, they repay careful reading and re-reading. This short collection announces a wonderfully skilled new poet.
Add this new chapbook to your collection of brilliant new Australian poetry!
DUSK
Richard Mullen
Richard Mullen
DUSK is a sequence of 81 poems all written in the same format: five long lines to each poem.
It is a quixotic collection that crackles with shifts of imagery and language as rapid as thoughts flashing in and out of mind, triggered by odd associations and creating new associations and paths.
At once erudite and homely, formal and unstructured, puzzling and humorous, Richard Mullen has created an intriguing and vibrant work.
It is a quixotic collection that crackles with shifts of imagery and language as rapid as thoughts flashing in and out of mind, triggered by odd associations and creating new associations and paths.
At once erudite and homely, formal and unstructured, puzzling and humorous, Richard Mullen has created an intriguing and vibrant work.
The Amnesia of Tulips
Joel Schueler
Joel Schueler
Joel Schueler is a singer-songwriter, novelist, and poet.
The Amnesia of Tulips is a richly varied collection of poems, presented in three parts. It shifts between poetic styles and forms, exploring experience and insight and constructing an unrestricted language of thought.
The book presents fifteen poems in 'The Collection Proper' which it follows with a generous 'Encore' of four poems. It closes with a musician's nod to his influences and favourites with another four poems in 'Tribute Corner'.
The Amnesia of Tulips is a richly varied collection of poems, presented in three parts. It shifts between poetic styles and forms, exploring experience and insight and constructing an unrestricted language of thought.
The book presents fifteen poems in 'The Collection Proper' which it follows with a generous 'Encore' of four poems. It closes with a musician's nod to his influences and favourites with another four poems in 'Tribute Corner'.
All's Well That Inks Well
Richard Dove
Richard Dove
In a sparkling collection of epigrammatic poems, Richard Dove, entertains, puzzles, confronts, and educates his readers. These poems are collected from the notebooks that Richard keeps with him at all times and although they shine with the immediacy of sudden thought and inspiration, they are also carefully polished and closely worked.
As the poet writes in a preface:
An eclectic selection
of thoughts, reflections, memories
and rhythmical musings,
captured in little Japanese notebooks
as small poems,
All’s Well that Inks Well will take you
on a journey
into this writer’s mind...
Enjoy the journey!
As the poet writes in a preface:
An eclectic selection
of thoughts, reflections, memories
and rhythmical musings,
captured in little Japanese notebooks
as small poems,
All’s Well that Inks Well will take you
on a journey
into this writer’s mind...
Enjoy the journey!
The Tercets
Jack Farrugia
Jack Farrugia
The Tercets is a remarkable poem, remarkable for its length, audacity, and for the lush, deft skill of its author, Jack Farrugia. Although it is a narrative poem telling of the aching longing of lost love, cast as a pilgrimage through the landscapes of the Levant, it is perhaps more accurately described as a descriptive poem, a landscape at once external and interior. It does not rely on incident to tell its story, but conjures a narrative of a stream of images, of the experience of the senses, of the hallucinatory imagination of the pilgrim. We travel with the pilgrim through his unending, footsore journey, through his remembered past, and through his questioning of his life and pilgrimage and its ultimate goal.
Told in spare, three line stanzas which give the poem its title, Jack Farrugia has created a masterwork: a poem of breathtaking depth and range and beauty.
It is an extraordinary achievement.
.
Told in spare, three line stanzas which give the poem its title, Jack Farrugia has created a masterwork: a poem of breathtaking depth and range and beauty.
It is an extraordinary achievement.
.
Like a Small City
Carla de Goede
Carla de Goede
Carla de Goede's poems are poems of the celebration of survival. And they are a celebration, even the harrowing, the startling, the shocking poems. They celebrate the survival of the poet and the survival of her attempts to understand her world and to communicate her understanding to us.
Although most of her poems seem centred in an urban world, they are infused with an arcadian magic. Buildings, seen from a train, are 'running like concrete emus'. Pedestrians walk past 'like speeding skinks'. An abandoned house is 'all dark windows / and skulking cats'. A white-coated scientist is 'like a kite stuck in a tree'. The natural world is everywhere in her poems and refuses to be excluded.
De Goede's poems are intriguing, unsettling, hopeful, and joyful. She writes of 'scraping ink together / like I know what I'm doing'.
She knows what she's doing.
.
Although most of her poems seem centred in an urban world, they are infused with an arcadian magic. Buildings, seen from a train, are 'running like concrete emus'. Pedestrians walk past 'like speeding skinks'. An abandoned house is 'all dark windows / and skulking cats'. A white-coated scientist is 'like a kite stuck in a tree'. The natural world is everywhere in her poems and refuses to be excluded.
De Goede's poems are intriguing, unsettling, hopeful, and joyful. She writes of 'scraping ink together / like I know what I'm doing'.
She knows what she's doing.
.
A Library of Things
Mark Fleckenstein
Mark Fleckenstein
Mark Fleckenstein is a poet of moments: moments caught and transcribed and wondered at and presented for wonder. His poetry creates the cerebral equivalent of retinal persistence: the images and phrases of his poems echo past the turn of the page and fire an impulse to re-read and reconsider and reconnect. This is an important collection from an accomplished and ambitious poet.
Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Mark Fleckenstein has published four books of poetry: Making Up the World, God Box, A Name for Everything, and Lowercase God. He has also published several chapbooks.
A Library of Things is his first collection published by in case of emergency press.
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Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Mark Fleckenstein has published four books of poetry: Making Up the World, God Box, A Name for Everything, and Lowercase God. He has also published several chapbooks.
A Library of Things is his first collection published by in case of emergency press.
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Toward the Real
Angelo J. Letizia
Angelo J. Letizia
Angelo Letizia has crafted a wonderful collection of poems which examine impossibly large questions - What is truth? What is real? How can we know? - and looks for answers in a quizzical examination of the everyday.
The poetic voice exploring these cosmic questions of the domestic is by turns baffled, amused, outraged, resigned, hopeful, grateful. Faced with the impossibility of finding definitive answers, Letizia offers the poems themselves and posits "now we need poetry to find truth". No argument from us!
Toward the Real is a wonderfully complex collection that is engaging, immediate, and rewarding..
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The poetic voice exploring these cosmic questions of the domestic is by turns baffled, amused, outraged, resigned, hopeful, grateful. Faced with the impossibility of finding definitive answers, Letizia offers the poems themselves and posits "now we need poetry to find truth". No argument from us!
Toward the Real is a wonderfully complex collection that is engaging, immediate, and rewarding..
.
Tuesday's Child Is Full
PS Cottier
PS Cottier
Since 2009, PS Cottier has been committed to posting a new poem each week on her blog, pscottier.com, usually on a Tuesday. That discipline has not only given her a collection of thirteen years of writing from which to choose the rich selection for this book, but also the playful title of the collection!
Tuesday's Child is Full is a diverse, sprawling, wildly entertaining collection of poems from a poet at the very top of her game. She writes with a fearless accuracy and a sympathetic wit. Her poems are calm and profound and effortlessly display the universal in the domestic. She is a modern pastoral poet, not only celebrating the wild and untamed, but placing our experience of an urban everyday in a natural setting, whether that is the death of that most unheroic of pets, a guinea pig, or the act of contemplating a mango. Her poems have the power to awaken an appreciation of the eternal and beautiful all around us.
Tuesday's Child is Full is a diverse, sprawling, wildly entertaining collection of poems from a poet at the very top of her game. She writes with a fearless accuracy and a sympathetic wit. Her poems are calm and profound and effortlessly display the universal in the domestic. She is a modern pastoral poet, not only celebrating the wild and untamed, but placing our experience of an urban everyday in a natural setting, whether that is the death of that most unheroic of pets, a guinea pig, or the act of contemplating a mango. Her poems have the power to awaken an appreciation of the eternal and beautiful all around us.
Batmanticism
Chad Parmenter
Chad Parmenter
Chad Parmenter's Batmanticism is an extraordinary collection of poems which explores classic poetic themes and forms while dressed in a cosplay mask, cape, and bat boots.
Do not be deceived.
These poems are masterful examples of poetic craftsmanship. Popular culture, or, rather, the way the author manipulates our imaginative response to figures of popular culture, is used with surgical precision and delivers a collection which is moving, profound, humorous, and intriguing.
Do not be deceived.
These poems are masterful examples of poetic craftsmanship. Popular culture, or, rather, the way the author manipulates our imaginative response to figures of popular culture, is used with surgical precision and delivers a collection which is moving, profound, humorous, and intriguing.
Finishing Stroke
Peter Murphy
Peter Murphy
We are proud to announce the publication of Peter Murphy's latest collection of poems.
This is a collection of some of the finest pieces of one of Australia’s most important and respected poets. It is a generous and ambitious project; reflective and joyful in equal measure, profound and playful, Finishing Stroke is rare in offering a deceptively joyful immediacy which reveals more and more of its intellectual antecedents on reflection and re-reading.
Peter Murphy's work is always a linguistic and visual joy and the poems in Finishing Stroke are no exception. His regular readers will appreciate his continuing exploration of the ordinary to expose the extraordinary; new readers will delight in the discovery of a poet of rare irreverence and wit.
This is a collection of some of the finest pieces of one of Australia’s most important and respected poets. It is a generous and ambitious project; reflective and joyful in equal measure, profound and playful, Finishing Stroke is rare in offering a deceptively joyful immediacy which reveals more and more of its intellectual antecedents on reflection and re-reading.
Peter Murphy's work is always a linguistic and visual joy and the poems in Finishing Stroke are no exception. His regular readers will appreciate his continuing exploration of the ordinary to expose the extraordinary; new readers will delight in the discovery of a poet of rare irreverence and wit.
Convictions of the Heart
John L. Holgerson
John L. Holgerson
Convictions of the Heart is a new collection from US poet, John L. Holgerson. The collection is divided in two parts. The first part, Hydra, is Holgerson’s delicate paean to an island he fell in love with when he first visited in 1970 and to which he still returns. The second part, Other Places, Other People, moves the setting from the Aegean Sea to explore the loves and lives of the poet’s experience away from Hydra. What unifies the whole collection is Holgerson’s masterful exploration of a fascination with memory, time, and experience and the shifting perspective that comes with arrival, leaving, recalling, returning.
This is an important collection from a masterful poet, at once challenging and reassuring, insightful and comforting.
This is an important collection from a masterful poet, at once challenging and reassuring, insightful and comforting.
A Tea with Shostakovich
Fulvio Tramontano
Fulvio Tramontano
"A Tea with Shostakovich is a dream with that 'special chaos' of a dream, which, for William Burroughs, was the hidden secret of Mexico. A 'special chaos', because everything—sometimes weirdly, sometimes eerily—is ever fluid in a dream, and, whatever happens, nobody blinks an eye during it, never. It is absolutely normal to start your day on a bridge in Prague and few minutes later—or few centuries later, because Time does not exist in dreams—being Along the soft banks/of murky Mekong, watching a beautiful and cruel harlot. Why is everything so normal and so logical and why are you completely comfortable with it? Shakespeare, as ever, has the answer: 'We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep'. " - Fulvio Tramontano
Decorating Pain
Rosie Bogumil
Rosie Bogumil
Decorating Pain is a confronting collection by Rosie Bogumil, a five time winner of the prestigious Randolph Stowe Award, who is perhaps better known to spoken word fans as Rosie Bee.
In these searing poems, Rosie captures the raw reality of a life lived alongside depression, anxiety, eating disorders and PTSD, but she also records an uplifting account of the triumph of self-acceptance.
This first collection heralds a rich and skilful new poetic voice.
In these searing poems, Rosie captures the raw reality of a life lived alongside depression, anxiety, eating disorders and PTSD, but she also records an uplifting account of the triumph of self-acceptance.
This first collection heralds a rich and skilful new poetic voice.
Unearthly Pleasures
Steve Evans
Steve Evans
Steve Evans was raised in country towns in South Australia. He was previously the Head of English and Creative Writing at Flinders University, and now edits and teaches for community groups and individuals.
"Putting Unearthly Pleasures together reminded me that a collection of poems is like a village. Its residents might share a neighbourhood but each poem is its own creature on its own personal stage. Their character differs. There’s bickering and harmony, contradictions and confluence, raised voices and sometimes disturbing though quiet ones. There are heroes and villains, and some wearing masks, perhaps seeming light-hearted but making a serious point."
"Putting Unearthly Pleasures together reminded me that a collection of poems is like a village. Its residents might share a neighbourhood but each poem is its own creature on its own personal stage. Their character differs. There’s bickering and harmony, contradictions and confluence, raised voices and sometimes disturbing though quiet ones. There are heroes and villains, and some wearing masks, perhaps seeming light-hearted but making a serious point."
Jeremiad Johnson
Tim Hawkins
Tim Hawkins
Tim Hawkins’ Jeremiad Johnson balances on the razor wire between natural beauty and disgust with the world as it has devolved to us. ...what Hawkins reveals in his poems is a fortifying or merciless vision. Sometimes both.
Elizabeth Kerlikowske
In Jeremiad Johnson, Hawkins takes on the poetic voice of a common man surviving somehow in this world we all share together. This is deft observational poetry that escorts readers into the familiar and recognizable scenes that Hawkins paints for us with vivid imagery, touches of irony and subtle humility.
Barry Harris
Palmistry
Christopher Ringrose
Christopher Ringrose
Christopher Ringrose's elegant and sophisticated verse explores mysteries, joys, experiences as they unfurl over decades. These are gentle, explorative, contemplative, but always surprising poems which repay reading and re-reading. Palmistry is the record of life which no one ever predicts.
The eye as it inhales onions
Lika Posamari
Lika Posamari
Presenting these intensely personal but always outward-looking poems, Lika Posamari explores the pain, strength, and wisdom that women draw from the complexity of their relationships across generations. These poems invite the reader to share Lika's startling, uncompromising, but ultimately triumphant conclusions.
The Geometry of a Thought
Gavin Mndawe
Gavin Mndawe
The poems in this collection are playful, energetic, and electrically intellectual. Influenced by the rhythms of rap and its inventive exploration and stretching of language to uncover new and unexpected connections, Gavin presents a collection which is simultaneously joyful and provocative.
Lightly, on the skin
Em König
Em König
Em König has assembled a collection which experiments with forms and structures to present his ideas in poems which display themselves like carefully constructed scenes of a single work of theatre. His poetry is unmistakably personal, but never solemn, never self-important or self-obsessed. He shows how the most important touches may only initially touch us lightly, on the skin, but which may reverberate forever.
real and unreal
Stephen House
Stephen House
Stephen House's poetry is startling, direct, and fiercely honest. His poems hold your gaze while challenging you to look away. Stephen's poems are a masterful assertion of the existence and persistence of beauty, uncompromised, unblemished, unconquered. Stephen won the 2018 Goolwa Poetry Cup with a performance of two of the poems included in this collection.
The Sonnets
Howard Firkin
Howard Firkin
The sonnets of Howard Firkin, collected in one edition for the first time.
Not Missing a Single Thing
Ian Jamieson
Ian Jamieson
Not Missing a Single Thing is the story, the comprehensive story, of Ray and his journey from 'car crash' to triumph! Ray is a precocious ten year old boy who has had to endure numerous obstacles and difficulties, including the cruelties of bullies and the idiocy of an incompetent teacher. With the encouragement of one of his favourite teachers, he writes down his 'car crash' story as a means of getting the bad stuff out of his system.
Five years later, and a fifteen year old Ray is ready to continue his story. Armed with his trusted HB pencils he chronicles his adventures with unblinking honesty and zest. Will he find love, friendship, happiness, understanding, purpose? Is he capable of saving someone’s life, and will he find out if magic really exists? Will he tell a story so resplendent that it can only be compared to a Rajasthani onion and potato curry?
Five years later, and a fifteen year old Ray is ready to continue his story. Armed with his trusted HB pencils he chronicles his adventures with unblinking honesty and zest. Will he find love, friendship, happiness, understanding, purpose? Is he capable of saving someone’s life, and will he find out if magic really exists? Will he tell a story so resplendent that it can only be compared to a Rajasthani onion and potato curry?
It Grows on Trees
Jonathan Griffiths
Jonathan Griffiths
A coming of age story in a family where chaos is normal, the ludicrous is everyday, and the improbable is unexceptional. When you're growing up in such a turbulent environment, what could make it worse? Try adding lots of money, unequally shared!
It Grows on Trees is a rollicking ride for Nelson and his astonishing collection of relatives and hangers-on that takes him across generations, several nations, affairs (both love and financial), and somehow or other… out the other side.
It Grows on Trees is a rollicking ride for Nelson and his astonishing collection of relatives and hangers-on that takes him across generations, several nations, affairs (both love and financial), and somehow or other… out the other side.
Smothered
Graeme Sparkes
Graeme Sparkes
When Alan’s mother rings to beg him to return to the family home for the final weeks of his father’s life, he baulks, unwilling to be around the man who tried to control every moment of his childhood and adolescence. But he is at the sick man’s bedside when his father makes an extraordinary request. Alan is tempted but does he follow through?
Smothered is the coming of age story of a socially isolated young man told with unsparing skill and sympathetic insight.
Alan grows up in a baffling world of stifling normality. His father, Tosh, is an ambitious man of more energy than talent; his mother is a caring woman who accepts the necessity of being seen to respect a conventional life. As he struggles to find purpose and worth, Alan is drawn through a tangle of drugs, self-harm, and self-serving friendships, always unable to free himself from the quagmire of family life and expectation. His final confrontation with his father and his past is both terrifying and consoling.
Smothered is a work of great understanding, told with skill, humour, and compassion.
Smothered is the coming of age story of a socially isolated young man told with unsparing skill and sympathetic insight.
Alan grows up in a baffling world of stifling normality. His father, Tosh, is an ambitious man of more energy than talent; his mother is a caring woman who accepts the necessity of being seen to respect a conventional life. As he struggles to find purpose and worth, Alan is drawn through a tangle of drugs, self-harm, and self-serving friendships, always unable to free himself from the quagmire of family life and expectation. His final confrontation with his father and his past is both terrifying and consoling.
Smothered is a work of great understanding, told with skill, humour, and compassion.
Hidden Valley
David L. Hume
David L. Hume
Hidden Valley is a multi faceted love story that examines its human actors as searchingly and lovingly as it examines a town and its history. It is a love letter to an entire town, a region, and its history.
David L. Hume has created an exquisite story of love, folly, strength, weakness, and weaves it all into a tender history of the lives of generations of ordinary and extraordinary people. It glows with the author's love of his subject.
David L. Hume has created an exquisite story of love, folly, strength, weakness, and weaves it all into a tender history of the lives of generations of ordinary and extraordinary people. It glows with the author's love of his subject.
Last Time Around
Will Clattenburg
Will Clattenburg
With a nod to The Decameron and The Divine Comedy, Last Time Around moves through three sections or “books”, as the four central characters travel from German beer garden to Brooklyn music venue to Polish diner. Along the way, the characters eulogize and disparage former acquaintances, lovers, and total strangers in an attempt to mask the tender spots in their own lives.
The book’s narrator, Ian, is himself going through a significant period of change when the novel opens. He is starting a new job, moving apartments, and attempting to get over his ex-girlfriend Olivia.
Hovering on the periphery of the evening is Nick Amante, Ian’s nemesis from Yale—a vague but continuous and haunting presence. Amante is a young writer whose most recent book, Inferno, has earned minor recognition. Even while Ian dismisses Amante as a hack (quoting liberally from Inferno’s most purple passages), it becomes clear that Amante has a guide-like role to play in Ian’s life. The night ends in a room full of fake mariachis where Ian finally connects with Amante and Olivia, and receives the inspiration to write his own story.
The book’s narrator, Ian, is himself going through a significant period of change when the novel opens. He is starting a new job, moving apartments, and attempting to get over his ex-girlfriend Olivia.
Hovering on the periphery of the evening is Nick Amante, Ian’s nemesis from Yale—a vague but continuous and haunting presence. Amante is a young writer whose most recent book, Inferno, has earned minor recognition. Even while Ian dismisses Amante as a hack (quoting liberally from Inferno’s most purple passages), it becomes clear that Amante has a guide-like role to play in Ian’s life. The night ends in a room full of fake mariachis where Ian finally connects with Amante and Olivia, and receives the inspiration to write his own story.
For Emma and Elvis
Charles Hall
Charles Hall
In the northern summer of 1977 Australians Michael Byrne and Emma Riley are holidaying in Spain. On arriving back in London they are shocked to learn that Elvis is dead; news that will have a profound effect on their lives.
For Emma and Elvis follows Michael and Emma as they make their way through the turmoil of the sixties and seventies – the social and political upheavals, the joy and the grief – in Australia and the world, an era that has gone forever. Australia in the sixties, when a 20-pack of king-size filters was forty cents, as was a 26 oz bottle of beer, or a gallon of petrol. When men too young to vote were conscripted to fight and die in Vietnam, and violence against women was deemed a domestic of no consequence.
For Emma and Elvis is a joyful, thoughtful evocation of a past era, but it highlights powerful messages for today.
For Emma and Elvis follows Michael and Emma as they make their way through the turmoil of the sixties and seventies – the social and political upheavals, the joy and the grief – in Australia and the world, an era that has gone forever. Australia in the sixties, when a 20-pack of king-size filters was forty cents, as was a 26 oz bottle of beer, or a gallon of petrol. When men too young to vote were conscripted to fight and die in Vietnam, and violence against women was deemed a domestic of no consequence.
For Emma and Elvis is a joyful, thoughtful evocation of a past era, but it highlights powerful messages for today.
If I Can, You Can
Karen O'Sullivan
Karen O'Sullivan
“If I can, you can” is a love story and the life story of Hayden Walsh, a 30-year-old who lives with cerebral palsy. Hayden is a partner, a father, a disability advocate and has a special bond spanning more than 20 years with former AFL Collingwood Coach Nathan Buckley, who has provided a moving foreword for this book.
Hayden’s life journey has been filled with challenges from the day he was born, physical, mental and emotional. With an infectious smile and equally contagious zest for life, Hayden overcomes countless hurdles with good humour and humility, becoming a role model and inspiration for those he encounters.
Karen O'Sullivan, acclaimed television journalist, tells Hayden's engaging, warm, and ultimately triumphant story with humour and understanding. An important book for anyone seeking to understand how to face the challenges life can set us.
Hayden’s life journey has been filled with challenges from the day he was born, physical, mental and emotional. With an infectious smile and equally contagious zest for life, Hayden overcomes countless hurdles with good humour and humility, becoming a role model and inspiration for those he encounters.
Karen O'Sullivan, acclaimed television journalist, tells Hayden's engaging, warm, and ultimately triumphant story with humour and understanding. An important book for anyone seeking to understand how to face the challenges life can set us.
Morrison & Mr Moore
Michael Hyde
Michael Hyde
Morrison is 17. Smart, sarcastic, annoying, and very angry.
Mr Moore, a school principal on the verge of retirement, has seen it all. Now coping with a wife who has Alzheimers, his plans for his life in retirement are in tatters. The last thing he needs is someone like Morrison.
What happens when two unlikely people find strength in each other?
This unique story is captivating and surprising, wrenching and uplifting, and offers brilliant insights into the nature of friendship and the problems of ageing at every age.
A novel of strength, hope, humility, and acceptance… and that strange kid who wears petticoats…
Mr Moore, a school principal on the verge of retirement, has seen it all. Now coping with a wife who has Alzheimers, his plans for his life in retirement are in tatters. The last thing he needs is someone like Morrison.
What happens when two unlikely people find strength in each other?
This unique story is captivating and surprising, wrenching and uplifting, and offers brilliant insights into the nature of friendship and the problems of ageing at every age.
A novel of strength, hope, humility, and acceptance… and that strange kid who wears petticoats…
The Hand of Justice
Phil Copsey
Phil Copsey
Bogdan Vulpe's empire is ruled with an iron fist. No one disobeys. That had been his way in Romania; so why should the City of Melbourne be any different?
Killing Justice leads you into a world of unbridled violence. Murder, extortion and anything else that Volpe needs to succeed will be used. If he has to take retribution against officers of the highest court in the land, so be it.
This latest challenge to Tony Signorotto and his loyal team is his toughest yet. Not only is he battling a violent criminal gang, but changes in the ranks of his beloved Carlton police force will pit him against an ambitious, careerist police Superintendent more interested in glory than justice. The fight to uphold the laws of the State continue in the gripping fourth instalment in the Tony Signorotto crime series.
Killing Justice leads you into a world of unbridled violence. Murder, extortion and anything else that Volpe needs to succeed will be used. If he has to take retribution against officers of the highest court in the land, so be it.
This latest challenge to Tony Signorotto and his loyal team is his toughest yet. Not only is he battling a violent criminal gang, but changes in the ranks of his beloved Carlton police force will pit him against an ambitious, careerist police Superintendent more interested in glory than justice. The fight to uphold the laws of the State continue in the gripping fourth instalment in the Tony Signorotto crime series.
The Hand of Justice
Phil Copsey
Phil Copsey
Senior Sergeant Tony Signorotto and his loyal team of blue have fought many battles against crime in the heartland of the inner Melbourne suburb of Carlton. Now a new threat has emerged, and it is one of their own. Do they trust him to see if he can save himself and his career? Or do they give him just enough rope to hang himself?
This thrilling addition to Copsey's Justice series will take the Carlton police on a journey that spans illegal gambling, the Russian mafia, an international begging scam, and down a one-way path of murder and kidnapping.
In a fight to contain the destruction, Tony Signorotto and Phil Stone will put their careers on the line. Signorotto leads from the front and tries to save his wayward colleague; Stone faces the ignominy of a forced retirement if they cannot stop a ruthless Russian gangster. Can a local police force do its job when international diplomacy is muddying already muddy water?
The Hand of Justice is an intriguing mix of politics, policing, and power. The stakes are high and reputations will be made or lost.
This thrilling addition to Copsey's Justice series will take the Carlton police on a journey that spans illegal gambling, the Russian mafia, an international begging scam, and down a one-way path of murder and kidnapping.
In a fight to contain the destruction, Tony Signorotto and Phil Stone will put their careers on the line. Signorotto leads from the front and tries to save his wayward colleague; Stone faces the ignominy of a forced retirement if they cannot stop a ruthless Russian gangster. Can a local police force do its job when international diplomacy is muddying already muddy water?
The Hand of Justice is an intriguing mix of politics, policing, and power. The stakes are high and reputations will be made or lost.
The Calibre of Justice
Phil Copsey
Phil Copsey
The second instalment of the Tony Signorotto series sees the hard bitten police officer newly promoted to the rank of Senior Sergeant. Still stationed at his beloved Carlton Police Station, but out of the firing line of day-to-day street policing, Tony is hoping that the old street wars that raged between him and his mafia relatives are battles of the past.
Life should be less complicated now. He has made the sacrifice of life on the edge for nine-to-five and the paperwork routine surrounding his mahogany foxhole - until the rumours of a possible firearms raid on the Victoria Police Department. Enough handguns, if stolen, to flood the streets of Carlton and every major city in Australia.
Fast-paced, and brilliantly plotted, The Calibre of Justice is also frighteningly real!
Life should be less complicated now. He has made the sacrifice of life on the edge for nine-to-five and the paperwork routine surrounding his mahogany foxhole - until the rumours of a possible firearms raid on the Victoria Police Department. Enough handguns, if stolen, to flood the streets of Carlton and every major city in Australia.
Fast-paced, and brilliantly plotted, The Calibre of Justice is also frighteningly real!
Blue Justice
Phil Copsey
Phil Copsey
Blue Justice is an Australian crime novel with a difference: this is cops on the beat. This is a book about real policing. There are no tortured detectives puzzling over motive or building a case on fragments of lucky finds of evidence. Forget the bizarre clues, the mastermind criminals. This is blood-on-the-floor police work.
Sergeant Tony Signorotto has good friends, plenty of enemies, and the sort of family connections that just might get you killed. He may be an old-school cop in a rapidly changing world, but even fashionable Carlton still has a few old-fashioned problems to sort out. And Tony Signorotto is just the man to have on hand to solve them.
Phil Copsey served with Victoria State Police Force, Australia, for forty years. His experience fighting crime on the streets of multicultural Melbourne inspired him to write his debut novel, Blue Justice. His depictions of characters and crimes are infused with authentic operational details.
Sergeant Tony Signorotto has good friends, plenty of enemies, and the sort of family connections that just might get you killed. He may be an old-school cop in a rapidly changing world, but even fashionable Carlton still has a few old-fashioned problems to sort out. And Tony Signorotto is just the man to have on hand to solve them.
Phil Copsey served with Victoria State Police Force, Australia, for forty years. His experience fighting crime on the streets of multicultural Melbourne inspired him to write his debut novel, Blue Justice. His depictions of characters and crimes are infused with authentic operational details.
Macaulay Station
Graeme Sparkes
Graeme Sparkes
Macaulay Station is a lament and a celebration. Frank Munro has lost his close friend Charlie, dead just one year, his career is a mundane casualty of the technological revolution, his youth is a memory, another casualty of the tyranny of time.
Frank Munro has had change thrust upon him. He’s trying to adapt. Once an award winning journalist, Frank has been put out to pasture, but he is fighting to renew his purpose, renew his life, and save the woman he loves from her disastrous infatuation.
Can a conversation with a dead man on Macaulay Station point the way?
A novel for anyone who has glimpsed the future and didn't like what they saw.
Frank Munro has had change thrust upon him. He’s trying to adapt. Once an award winning journalist, Frank has been put out to pasture, but he is fighting to renew his purpose, renew his life, and save the woman he loves from her disastrous infatuation.
Can a conversation with a dead man on Macaulay Station point the way?
A novel for anyone who has glimpsed the future and didn't like what they saw.
Male Pattern Behaviour
Howard Firkin
Howard Firkin
The hilarious, touching, and sometimes tragic story of Thomas Furphy: writer, dreamer, con man, lover. A man with more than a few skeletons in his closet (and in his backyard).
Male Pattern Behaviour charts this one, very singular, man’s journey to discover meaning in the male role, reform the Australian political system, and regain sexual function. All while evading a psychopath and society more generally.
Male Pattern Behaviour charts this one, very singular, man’s journey to discover meaning in the male role, reform the Australian political system, and regain sexual function. All while evading a psychopath and society more generally.
At Daytrap
Reginald Wells
Reginald Wells
Reginald Wells' explosive tales of life in rural Australia.
Previously only circulated in ragged samizdat manuscript, this bizarre collection of short stories, at once hilarious, profane, bawdy, tawdry, and unlikely, is now available in an authoritative version. Destined to become an Australian classic.
Not everyone is happy at the rural, Australian way of life depicted in these stories, of course. The eminent Sir Pelham Corrie has written: "One final word. It is not inconceivable that one day some ignorant, jumped-up, crypto-intellectual johnny-come-lately, academic bounder will come along and try to claim that the central character in these stories, the so-called ‘Uncle Vern’, was some kind of modern Sisyphus pushing rocks downhill, a modern Prometheus giving matches to children, some kind of symbol of our times. Well, he certainly is not that. He is nothing but a mountebank, and a living slur on the good name of decent rural folk who are and always have been and always will be the backbone of this great nation of ours."
So don't say you weren't warned. Not recommended for anyone under the age of eighteen. Not recommended for those of delicate or sophisticated taste.
Previously only circulated in ragged samizdat manuscript, this bizarre collection of short stories, at once hilarious, profane, bawdy, tawdry, and unlikely, is now available in an authoritative version. Destined to become an Australian classic.
Not everyone is happy at the rural, Australian way of life depicted in these stories, of course. The eminent Sir Pelham Corrie has written: "One final word. It is not inconceivable that one day some ignorant, jumped-up, crypto-intellectual johnny-come-lately, academic bounder will come along and try to claim that the central character in these stories, the so-called ‘Uncle Vern’, was some kind of modern Sisyphus pushing rocks downhill, a modern Prometheus giving matches to children, some kind of symbol of our times. Well, he certainly is not that. He is nothing but a mountebank, and a living slur on the good name of decent rural folk who are and always have been and always will be the backbone of this great nation of ours."
So don't say you weren't warned. Not recommended for anyone under the age of eighteen. Not recommended for those of delicate or sophisticated taste.
Animalcule
Anthony Riddelll
Anthony Riddelll
Anthony Riddelll's remarkable novella, Animalcule, poses the question, "Should humans have tails?"
Join Dr Bingbang, Ichabod Snell, Strawberrie, Pablo Tater and a host of others as they avoid answering this and many, many other questions.
You will learn, however, the singular of BANANA.
Join Dr Bingbang, Ichabod Snell, Strawberrie, Pablo Tater and a host of others as they avoid answering this and many, many other questions.
You will learn, however, the singular of BANANA.
The Ajoona Guesthouse
Stephen House
Stephen House
"Remarkable, original and deeply evocative writing"
THEATRE TRAVELS
"A rich potency and deep poetic magnitude"
RADIO ADELAIDE
THEATRE TRAVELS
"A rich potency and deep poetic magnitude"
RADIO ADELAIDE
Following its successful premiere, we are proud to publish a chapbook edition of the script of Stephen House's brilliant one man play, 'The Ajoona Guesthouse'.
Stephen House is a masterful story teller and The Ajoona Guesthouse is a fast paced celebration of the lives of a wonderfully varied selection of humanity, living on their wits and charm, exploiting and exhibiting unending generosity, caring and careless, fragile and astonishingly strong. Based on the author's lived experience in urban and rural India, The Ajoona Guesthouse is rivetting: entertaining and deeply profound.
Stephen House's first collection of poetry, real and unreal, is also published by in case of emergency press.
Stephen House is a masterful story teller and The Ajoona Guesthouse is a fast paced celebration of the lives of a wonderfully varied selection of humanity, living on their wits and charm, exploiting and exhibiting unending generosity, caring and careless, fragile and astonishingly strong. Based on the author's lived experience in urban and rural India, The Ajoona Guesthouse is rivetting: entertaining and deeply profound.
Stephen House's first collection of poetry, real and unreal, is also published by in case of emergency press.
Love Bird
Georgie Harriss
Georgie Harriss
It’s Franny’s eighth birthday and she’s getting her first pet – a cockatiel called Prince Ping Pong.
She’s always wanted someone to love, and more importantly, someone to love her back. But when Prince Ping Pong starts loving their daughter the wrong way, Joan and Richard are thrown into an absurdist parenting nightmare. They must try to remove the deviant bird while conserving what’s left of Franny’s innocence.
After all, these are her formative years.
Love Bird is a powerful, funny, beautifully crafted play which explores the natural process of childhood sexual development and how it is controlled, twisted and warped - often by those who mean to protect it.
She’s always wanted someone to love, and more importantly, someone to love her back. But when Prince Ping Pong starts loving their daughter the wrong way, Joan and Richard are thrown into an absurdist parenting nightmare. They must try to remove the deviant bird while conserving what’s left of Franny’s innocence.
After all, these are her formative years.
Love Bird is a powerful, funny, beautifully crafted play which explores the natural process of childhood sexual development and how it is controlled, twisted and warped - often by those who mean to protect it.
Granny Beggard's Chair
Howard Firkin
Howard Firkin
Howard Firkin's withering look at life in Mullock, a small Australian town with big plans and bigger characters.
What happens when one of the town's least respected inhabitants becomes one of its most important? Will Granny Beggard's eccentric scheme to avoid another drink driving charge derail Mullock's glorious future?
Sad, funny, wholly unlikely, and wholly predictable, the end of Granny Beggard's dreams are the start of a brand new Mullock.
What happens when one of the town's least respected inhabitants becomes one of its most important? Will Granny Beggard's eccentric scheme to avoid another drink driving charge derail Mullock's glorious future?
Sad, funny, wholly unlikely, and wholly predictable, the end of Granny Beggard's dreams are the start of a brand new Mullock.
Todd in Venice
Sofia Chapman
Sofia Chapman
Todd in Venice is a sparklingly playful script, full of linguistic acrobatics and sexual intrigue, where gender is as fluid as the reality of the city in which it is set. Inspired by Thomas Mann's Der Tod in Venedig (Death in Venice), Sofia Chapman takes her readers on a guided tour of Venice and humanity, by turns poignant, funny, provocative, and joyful.
Todd in Venice premiered in a shortened form at Gasworks Arts Park ‘Playtime’ development program on St Agnes’ night, Midsumma Festival 2016. It opened in its full version in February 2017 for the Midsumma Festival of that year.
Warmly received by audiences at its opening, Todd in Venice is a richly rewarding play to read, allowing a full appreciation of the skilful layering of meaning and language. Truly a delight!
Todd in Venice premiered in a shortened form at Gasworks Arts Park ‘Playtime’ development program on St Agnes’ night, Midsumma Festival 2016. It opened in its full version in February 2017 for the Midsumma Festival of that year.
Warmly received by audiences at its opening, Todd in Venice is a richly rewarding play to read, allowing a full appreciation of the skilful layering of meaning and language. Truly a delight!
Fit for Nothing
Howard Firkin
Howard Firkin
Howard Firkin's eclectic play which features appearances by Martin Heidegger, Anne Hathaway (both of them), and Pish, the spirit of our age.
A story of love triumphant, even as it fails...
A story of love triumphant, even as it fails...
One Surviving Story
The question was simple: if you knew only one of your stories would survive you, which would you choose?
Twenty-eight writers select their best-loved stories for this remarkable anthology.
Twenty-eight writers select their best-loved stories for this remarkable anthology.
One Surviving Poem
The question was simple: if you knew only one of your poems would survive you, which would you choose?
The forty-two poets selected for this anthology responded with some surprising choices.
The forty-two poets selected for this anthology responded with some surprising choices.
Footprints in the Hills
Mudgee Valley Writers
Mudgee Valley Writers
A collection of the life stories of some of Mudgee’s most prominent residents, edited by Jill Baggett and Pamela Meredith, this anthology presents the life stories of a fascinating and enterprising group of individuals.
"Such stories, such variety in the histories of these
people now collected and held for coming generations
to read and wonder. Lives so different from today..."
"Such stories, such variety in the histories of these
people now collected and held for coming generations
to read and wonder. Lives so different from today..."
in case of emergency press ● for writers who are sick of emerging and are ready for the full emergency