PENGUIN TO LAUNCH GLOBAL BUSINESS BOOK IMPRINT

Portfolio Penguin, already successful in the US, to roll out in the UK,
Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa

London, 12th April 2010… Penguin is to launch a global business book imprint by rolling out its Portfolio imprint this autumn in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. Portfolio is a market-leading business imprint in the US, and has expanded to India in the last few years.

Penguin Chairman and CEO John Makinson said: “Business publishing is increasingly global in reach, and in Portfolio we have one of the world’s strongest and fastest-growing business book imprints. So we are delighted to launch Portfolio Penguin in the UK and our other major English language markets this year. It will enable us to develop authors and serve the demands of readers both locally and globally, across all print and digital formats.”

Read more »

Release

Poet and academic John Newton new JD Stout Fellow

Victoria University’s 2010 JD Stout Fellow will explore the contribution of Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Germany, among other war-time immigrants, to New Zealand’s national identity and culture.

Dr John Newton is a poet, critic and academic as well as the author of the highly‐acclaimed book, The Double Rainbow: James K. Baxter, Ngati Hau and the Jerusalem Commune published last year by Victoria University Press.

As the JD Stout Fellow, Dr Newton will be based at Victoria’s Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies where he will conduct research for a new book about immigration to New Zealand at the time of World War Two.

He plans to explore the contribution made by such immigration to the development of New Zealand culture.

“War‐time immigrants, including Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Germany, played a key role in the growth of national culture from the mid‐1930s to the late‐1960s,” says Dr Newton.

Until this year Dr Newton has been based in the English Department at the University of Canterbury, where he has taught New Zealand and American Literature, Poetry and Reading Culture.

Read more »

A new book is set to uncover the secrets of John Key and National’s success in the 2008 general election.

Key to Victory: The New Zealand General Election of 2008 is a series of insiders’ views on our most recent general election, showing how John Key became New Zealand’s 38th Prime Minister.

Edited by Victoria University Professors Stephen Levine and Nigel S. Roberts and published by Victoria University Press, the book offers accounts from politicians, campaign advisors and media commentators who reveal insights into how John Key successfully rode a popular mood for change to overthrow Helen Clark’s Labour Government after three terms.
Read more »

The 2009 issue of online literary journal Turbine (www.vuw.ac.nz/turbine) is now live, featuring the best and freshest in New Zealand writing.

Turbine 09 includes the title essay from Can You Tolerate This? the personal essay collection by newly-announced Adam Foundation Prize winner Ashleigh Young, alongside work by 2009 Montana Best First Book of Poetry recipient, Sam Sampson, award-winning ex-pat New Zealand writer Kirsty Gunn and leading UK poet Christopher Reid.

Read more »

New Publishing Award Announced

The New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN NZ Inc.), in association with Pindar NZ, Whitcoulls, Astra Print Group, the New Zealand Herald and Creative New Zealand are proud to announce the launch of the “NZSA Pindar Publishing Prize”.

This competition offers budding New Zealand authors the opportunity to be professionally edited, produced, marketed and distributed throughout New Zealand. The total package is worth around $35,000 to a talented new author. Full details and application forms are available on www.authors.org.nz

Read more »

Media Release
The Michael King Writers’ Centre is calling for applications for the first Maori writer’s residency at the centre in 2010.

The residency is being offered with the support of Te Waka Toi, the Maori Arts Board of Creative New Zealand.

The residency is for eight weeks from 14 May next year. The selected author will have free accommodation at the writers’ centre in Devonport, use of its writing studio and will receive a stipend of $8,000.

It is the first time the centre has been able to offer a residency especially for a Maori writer. It has had 10 writers in residence since it was established in 2005. Next year, it will have two short residencies and a six-month residency, as well as the residency especially for a Maori writer.

Read more »

Press Release

New book examines global winds of change blowing through Samoa and the Pacific

From fales to fridges, coconut palms to cell phones, Samoa is a country in the midst of globalisation and technological change.

The Warm Winds of Change: Globalisation in Contemporary Samoa (Auckland University Press), an absorbing study of the impact of this worldwide phenomenon on a small island nation by Cluny and La‘avasa Macpherson, was launched last night at the 11th Pacific Islands Political Studies Association Conference in Auckland, New Zealand.
Read more »

ESCAP brings Noble Laureate Stiglitz to Myanmar to advise on economic policy and rural poverty reduction

Bangkok (UN/ESCAP Information Services) — Nobel laureate Joseph E.
Stiglitz will visit Myanmar at the invitation of the United Nations
Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) to advise
on development policies and poverty reduction, especially in the rural
area.

Prof. Stiglitz will speak at a round table and development forum organized
by ESCAP with Myanmar’s Ministry of National Planning and Economic
Development and Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation on 15 December in
the capital, Napyitaw. The forum will bring together the two Ministers from
Myanmar, U Soe Tha and U Htay Oo, in a dialogue with Prof. Stiglitz and
other eminent experts to discuss strategies for poverty reduction in light
of Asia’s regional and sub-regional experiences.

Read more »

Montana Award winning poet to be Victoria University’s 2010 Writer in Residence

Poet Jenny Bornholdt will be the 2010 Writer in Residence at Victoria University.

Earlier this year Bornholdt won the Montana New Zealand Book Award for Poetry for her latest collection The Rocky Shore. The book is made up of six long poems that together form a moving autobiographical essay.

“The content and emotional range of the collection is remarkable—from reflections on the death of the poet’s father to the day-to-day details of ordinary domestic life,” says Director of Victoria’s International Institute of Modern Letters, Professor Bill Manhire.

Read more »

What do you believe is the spiritual significance of music? A new book edited by a New Zealand-born writer explores this thought-provoking question with personal contributions from many of the world’s leading musicians and writers.

Justin St. Vincent, Director and Founder of Xtreme Music, has interviewed more than 1000 people to explore the deeper meanings of music, choosing over 100 responses to produce a cutting-edge and ground-breaking project for our music-minded generation.

Read more »