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NEW
IN APRIL 2010
Adrian
Deans
MR CLEANSHEETS
$ 34.95
978-0-9806651-3-0
MARCH
2010
Euan
Mitchell
Feral Tracks
$19.95
978-0-9806651-2-3
Feral
Tracks captivated teenagers when first released
in 1998, including reluctant male readers. It was short-listed
for a readers' choice award and optioned for a feature film.
The screenplay was created in 2002 and, although not produced
as a movie, inspired this newly rewritten version of the story.
Feral Tracks: the novel adapted from the screenplay
has transformed the travelogue style of the first publication
into a more tightly structured story format for a fresh readership.
We are supporting our publication of the novel with free a Study
Guide, downloadable here,
due to the story's popularity with Years 10 and 11 English classes
in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
Download
first 2 chapters of Feral Tracks.
NOVEMBER
2009
Social
Work Education
Voices from the Asia Pacific
Edited by Carolyn Noble, Mark Henrickson and In Young
Han
$40.00 rrp 9780980665116
OCTOBER
2009
Sandy
Jeffs
Flying With Paper Wings
$32.95 (9780980665109)
Sandy
Jeffs grows up in an Australian country town in the 1950s and
60s, domestic violence ripping her family to shreds. As a student
in the 1970s she comes to terms with her sexuality as part of
an alternative family. With the onset of schizophrenia at age
23 Sandy’s world falls apart. Flying with
Paper Wings offers privileged insights into madness
– medical, social, personal – as well as disturbing
reflections on its causes and its care. It is also a story of
how poetry can become a personal saviour in the face of nearly
irresistible forces.
The
biggest satisfaction I gained from reading this book was the
realisation that this is an exceptional record of someone
who is still gravely ill, and yet is able to surface over
and over again, with mind and humour still intact. It has
a depth which gives it strength. It has a warmth and honesty
that is refreshing.
Anne Deveson
Ultimately,
it is Sandy’s insight into fighting the monster of psychosis
that makes this book valuable to the many people – too
many – in our society that have had to fight similar
demons. Whether Sandy’s voices will ever be stilled
is hard to say. She says of them: ‘It’s like a
war of words between us. I hope it will be me who has the
last word.’ With this book, that will outlive both her
and them, I believe she has.
Andrew Denton
JUNE
2009
Mischa
Merz
Bruising: A Boxer's Story
$32.95
9780977504794 (pbk.)
Click
here to buy
Bruising
___________________
I
regard having someone try and hit me in the head as almost a
friendly gesture. In fact I have made some friends that way
and really only lost them when we stopped hitting each other.
Mischa
Merz
Click
here for a report on Mischa's successful 5-fight tour of the
US
Review
by Bernie McCoy July 20, 2009
Mischa
Merz on Bruising: a Boxer’s Story
 Bruising
is the story of Merz’s long love affair with the art of
boxing - from throwing and receiving her first punches - to
competing in an Australian amateur title fight and beyond. Boxing
opens her to new ideas about what it means to be a woman, it
tests her courage as well as her physical limitations and connects
her with others in unexpected ways. It provides her with the
thrilling and often hilarious background against which to examine
myths about feminine virtue and physical weakness.
Bruising,
which was short listed for the Dobbie Award in 2001, and this
latest edition is updated with new material based on a trip
to New York where Merz spent time training with the women at
one of America’s oldest and most famous boxing gyms.
Mischa
Merz is a journalist and author of both fiction and non-fiction.
She has worked for newspapers and magazines for twenty years.
Bruising, originally published by Picador Australia, has been
reissued with updated material, by Vulgar Press. She lives in
Melbourne with her husband Peter.
www.mischamerz.com
Click
here to buy
Bruising
Bruising
takes us deep into the illicit realities of female anger and
aggression, and then by way of the male stronghold of the
boxing gym into the ring . . . Merz makes her own body, discipline
and courage her subjects of experiment as she explores the
terrors and the exhilarations of the female capacity for violence
with startling honesty. You can almost smell the sweat.
Inga
Clendinnen
Author of Tiger’s Eye
Every
now and then a book comes along that invites you to shake
off your dusty old prejudices, and stop thinking along dichotomous
lines . . . it's a gripping read and a timely call to re-examine
both sanctioned and unsanctioned violence.
Sian
Prior
The Age
The
work fits comfortably within the stylish non-fiction popularised
by writers such as Dava Sobel, Helen Garner and Janet Malcolm.
Mary Rose Liverani
The Australian
I
like writing that explores experience in a naked way. I
particularly like it when the writer uses words with the
fidelity of a harp string. This is a book about a young
woman with an intellectual orientation to life who takes
up boxing. I can honestly say I have never read anything
like it.
Martin Flanagan
The Age
FEBRUARY
2009
Enza
Gandolfo and Marty Grace
It keeps me sane: Women, craft, wellbeing
$29.95
978-0-9775047-8-7
This book
is has its origins in the The Everyday Creativity of Women Craftmakers,
a narrative research project exploring the roles and meanings
of craftmaking in women’s lives. This research aims to
document and communicate contemporary women’s stories
of their engagement with craftwork; and to explore the links
that women perceive between their engagement in craftmaking
and their wellbeing. The research was funded by Victoria University
and Spotlight Pty Ltd, a large Australian retailer of fabrics,
wool and craft supplies.
In the book
we explore the meaning of craft and craftmaking to women and
the key themes that have emerged from the research including:
creative and self expression, wellbeing, community and intergenerational
links and pleasure and passion for the craft itself. There are
15 individual women and one group highlighted in the book with
images of their craftwork and their stories and ideas about
the meaning of craft to them.
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