MEDIA RELEASE
The publication of C K Stead’s Collected Poems 1951–2006 by Auckland University Press is a literary landmark, not only in New Zealand but across the world.

This achievement deserves to be seen as an important contribution to the literature of the English-speaking world, says founding editor of the London Review of Books Karl Miller.

Stead’s “talent is more than ambidextrous. To excel as a poet, novelist and critic is rarer than we tend to think, and Karl Stead has managed it.” Read more »

To: Mykeljon Winckel
Editor, Franklin E Local
Pukekohe

Kia ora Mykeljon,

I was interested to see an anonymous article called ‘An Unpalatable Truth’ in the latest issue of your magazine Franklin E Local. (1) The article suggests that a series of European peoples, most notably the Celts, settled New Zealand thousands of years ago. According to the article, these ancient settlers were peaceful folk who lived happily for many centuries before being conquered by Polynesian invaders who were the ancestors of the Maori. The ‘savage’ Polynesians supposedly ate all the Celtic men, made the Celtic women into sex slaves, and stole the wood and greenstone carvings the Celts had created.

According to ‘An Unpalatable Truth’, evidence of the existence of the original white settlers of New Zealand is being suppressed by a conspiracy of government officials, academics, museum workers, and Maori. You accompanied ‘An Unpalatable Truth’ with an editorial which enthusiastically endorsed the article, and which demanded that New Zealand history ‘be known without political bias’.
Read more »

Press Release:
Gill Pittar looks set to be the creator of the next hit children’s brand, just like Bob The Builder or Thomas the Tank Engine. The well-spoken grandmother from Gisborne has already seen her series of Milly, Molly books sell over 3.5 million copies in 109 countries. The Milly, Molly animated TV series she has helped to write, an adaptation of her books, has been shown in 9 regions – across Europe, South America, Scandinavia, Canada, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and NZ and with a second series out next year, Milly, Molly looks set to become a major brand in children’s entertainment. Read more »

Who Owns the High Country? by Ann Brower

Craig Potton Publishing, $30. Reviewed by RICHARD THOMSON

Let’s hear it for Ann Brower. There has been a spate of book about the South Island high country recently, emphasising rugged yet photogenic individualists, resource-intense recreation, its rich and yet degraded history and just larking about. But Brower’s book is the one you really need to read.

Others had grumbled about tenure review – the process by which the most valuable parts of many leased farms in the South Island’s high country have been privatised, in exchange for the reservation of other leased land with ‘high conservation values’. But Brower, it seems, was the first to ask: ‘When privatising nearly 20,000 hectares of Wanaka shoreline, why did the Crown pay the recipients over a quarter of a million dollars?’ Read more »

Media Release
New Zealand Post and the Katherine Mansfield Menton Trust today announced Wellington author Jenny Pattrick as winner of the 2009 New Zealand Post Mansfield Prize.

The $100,000 Prize, offered in conjunction with the Winn-Manson Menton Trust and administered by Creative New Zealand, covers return travel to France and living and accommodation expenses for six months. The Prize enables a New Zealand author to work at the Villa Isola Bella in Menton, France, where famed writer Katherine Mansfield lived and wrote in 1919 and 1920. Read more »

Media Release
When historian Michael King and photographer, Marti Friedlander collaborated to produce Moko – Maori Tattooing in the 20th Century in 1972, they had little idea that the book would retain its importance and popularity more than 30 years later.

Kept in print through these three decades, an entirely revised edition of this seminal work on the ancient art of Maori moko will be published early December. This new edition takes Marti Friedlander’s original prints, rescans and reproduces them in a spot varnished tritone on 157 gsm matt art paper. The larger, hardback format and new design truly do justice to this classic work.

This was Michael King’s first book. Favourably received, it was the catalyst in turning this great writer’s career in the direction of New Zealand social history. Read more »

Model Curricula for Journalism Education for Developing Countries and Emerging Democracies. Paris: UNESCO

Reviewed by SHAILENDRA SINGH

What should journalism schools teach? This remains a vexing question the world over, including the Pacific. A century after the first journalism school began in the United States in 1902, a clear formula for journalism education has yet to be defined.

The issue remains contentious—it pitches the media industry against journalism schools and academics against each other. Differences among staff within the same institutions are common. Read more »

Poem of the Week: I Can’t Stand it Any More by Michael Rosen

The week following the ousting from Parliament of New Zealand’s only anti-immigrant party, New Zealand First, seems a good time to point people in the direction of this choice piece of performance poetry by Britain’s Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen. Read more »

Media Release
London, Sydney, New York: 12th November 2008: HarperCollins today announced that Michael Moynahan will be the new Chief Executive Officer for Australia and New Zealand moving from his current post as Managing Director, Random House India and Chairman, Random House, New Zealand. He will take up his post in the New Year. Read more »

Media Release
Wellington Writer Dave Armstrong, and Otago University PhD student Will Catton, have won the fiction/non fiction sections, respectively, of the Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing. Their cash awards of $2500 each were presented at the Science Honours Dinner, Te Papa, Wellington, on Tuesday night, by Bill Manhire, for whom the prize is named, and Guy Somerset from the New Zealand Listener. Both the Listener and the International Institute for Modern Letters headed by Professor Manhire and the Listener are partners with the Royal Society in this award. Read more »