Publications
Dangerous Goods
Gathered together in an intriguing and readable collection, these poems have all been published previously in a wide variety of Australian, Canadian and American literary journals. Ravens and road kill, flowers and blowflies, a beggar in the street, the lure of mysterious men and the myths of iconic women, an encounter between a plumber and an attack dog, unwrapping the Easter egg of disappointment, these are conversations with the reader about the strangeness of the ordinary things that happen to us all.
Under the Mountain
Acclaimed as a master storyteller and a writer of stature, Geoffrey Dean has been compared to William Faulkner and Patrick White, Anton Chekov and Katherine Mansfield, Somerset Maugham and A.E. Coppard. Dean’s award-winning work has been published in six previous books. In this seventh collection, based on his childhood and youth spent in Hobart, Tasmania, he lets the characters speak for themselves. The reader forgets there is a writer and follows with fascination as stories unfold and secrets are revealed.
Title Page and Table of Contents . . .Sample Chapter
Female Factory, Female Convicts
by Tony Rayner
“No, no, not more of those damned whores!”
“…the far greater number were harmless unfortunate creatures”
Who were these women? Exiled from their homes in Britain never again to see their families they entered an alien world and made it their own, if they survived.
Shipwreck and disease, the humiliation of stocks, iron collar, and head shaving and always the threat of the female factories designed to control their minds and crush their spirits, they endured all this and more.
Tony Rayner draws on twenty years of research to create a vivid portrait of the convict era and he brings back to life some of the women who became the founding mothers of Tasmania.
Title Page and Table of Contents . . . Sample Chapters . . .Notes from the book
Ordinary Women
by Edward KynastonThis book has been described as a truly Australian story, a family saga, a truly humanising women’s liberation, and a rivetting story.
‘The story is unforgettable…the book is something that refuses to be put down. It tells the harrowing story of a Dresden family from the 1930s through the initial frightening stringencies of their experiences as an anti-Nazi family, through World War II. It climaxes in the fire-bombing of Dresden, but then moves through the subsequent period, in a long, slow aftershock..’ Tom Shapcott
A Writer’s Tasmania
edited by Carol Patterson & Edith Speers
Fourteen of Tasmania’s finest writers describe their island state in essays filled with humour, affection, personal reminiscence and historical background. Contributors include Margaret Scott and Senator Bob Brown. Foreword by Amanda Lohrey.
Includes map of Tasmania and index of place names.
Title Page and Table of Contents . . . Sample Chapters
four quarters
poetry by Edith Speers
If you love poetry – or think you hate it – this is the book for you. Over 100 poems by this well known author, working in rhyme, free verse, and traditional love sonnet forms, can now be read in one remarkable collection. Les Murray has commended the book: ‘Edith Speers’s new collection plays live and true, and gives full measure in a whole range of measures.’
Title Page and Table of Contents . . . Sample Chapters
Rattling the Cage
short stories by Morag Kirk
Mysterious deaths and murderous mothers; treachery, lies and liars; strange visitations by a turkey, a robin and a flock of white cockatoos; plus an absolute gem of a housekeeper.
Quirky, compelling, witty and utterly readable, these prize-winning stories have created a new genre – the modern Gothic.
Title Page and Table of Contents . . . Samples Chapters
The Time it Rained Fish
a novel by Philomena van Rijswijk
The first Ellen is a Carmelite nun, born near Skibbereen during the Great Hunger. The second Ellen is a New Age convert, born in Sydney.
They are soul-sisters in this family saga spanning over 100 years of land rights and republicanism in Ireland and Australia.
Title Page and Table of Contents . . . Sample Chapter
Over the Fence
Tasmanian Bush Yarns by Geoff Dean
Old Willum Haas is the only man in the district who won’t pray for rain; Phylis Barnes, the baker’s wife, offers more than just an extra cream bun; Elsa Gernhart finds that a coffin makes life worth living.
Meet the people of Montvale, a typical country town.