Poet, fiction writer, critic, essayist, teacher and academic, C.K. Stead has made his mark on all these disciplines. While he has already written or edited over fifty books, there is no sitting on his laurels for this nonagenarian. Instead, he wore them as New Zealand Poet Laureate from 2015–2017 and has continued to celebrate poetry and poets through blogs, reviews and essays. He has also returned to his exploration of the life and work of Katherine Mansfield, and to writing and revisiting short fiction as well as an ‘approximation’ of a play first written in French by Racine. Combining this eclectic material into one fascinating collection, this prize-winning wordsmith continues to provoke, delight and stimulate.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 304

Dimensions: 152 x 229 mm

Publication Date: 25-03-2024

It's the hottest weekend of Summer 2000. Dan Calder's at home with his girlfriend and she is packing up to leave when a call-out from Headquarters comes as a blessed relief. A run-of-the-mill job like a hundred the team's done before. Once he and hos surveillance colleagues are all in position. all they can do is wait for the target to move. Fortunately for Dan, this job calls for the Obs Van which is his happy place. Its mechanical idiosyncrasies make them kindred spirits in many ways. Plus double time for just sitting and watching the target's front door. 'Money for jam'. As his best friend Nick would say. To take his mind off the end of his latest domestic disaster, what could be better than whiling away the solitary hours by listening to all of his favourite songs, freshly installed on his brand-new iPod. But Dan's life is about to be turned upside down and ripped apart to the soundtrack of his pas and present-day life. The result could destroy him completely - or it could just be the making of him.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 355

Dimensions: 152 x 228 mm

Publication Date: 01-12-2023

Landfall is New Zealand’s foremost and longest-running arts and literary journal. Published twice a year, each volume showcases two full-colour art portfolios and brims with vital new fiction, poetry, cultural commentary, reviews, and biographical and critical essays. Bringing together a range of voices and perspectives, from established practitioners to emerging voices, Landfall is an exciting anthology that has its finger on the pulse of innovation and creativity in Aotearoa today. Landfall 246: Spring 2023 announces the winner of the 2023 Landfall Essay Competition, Aotearoa’s prestigious annual essay competition. The winning essay will be published in Landfall 246, alongside the judge’s report from Landfall editor, Lynley Edmeades. This issue of Landfall will also announce the winner of the biennial award for an original book-length collection of poems, the Kathleen Grattan Poetry Award. This year’s Kathleen Grattan Poety Award winner will be selected by award-winning poet and novelist, Anne Kennedy. Landfall 246 will also announce the winner of the 2023 Caselberg Trust International Poetry Prize, selected by this year’s judge, poet Rhian Gallagher.

Bind: paperback

Dimensions: 150 x 230 mm

Publication Date: 23-11-2023

When a distinguished New Zealand businessman is murdered in London, Detective Inspector O’Rorke is once again called in by Scotland Yard to help find the killer. But O’Rorke is soon enmeshed in the secrets of the past involving the chaos of the Crimean War thirty-four years previously and the murderous activities of the young revolutionaries who called themselves the Society of the White Rose. The dramatic events of those days shaped the lives and determined the fates of all who survived and now, the Society of the White Rose, more powerful than ever, is led by two of O’Rorke’s most unforgiving and ruthless enemies. Bogdan Lynskey and Count Zoltan Bathory have returned to London not only to assassinate the Austrian General Carl-Heinz Lorenz but to finally destroy O’Rorke himself. As O’Rorke tries to focus on the task at hand, whispers from the past grow louder, the circles of intrigue continue to swirl and alliances splinter, leading him to distrust even those who seem to be his closest colleagues. With danger now threatening his very household, O’Rorke’s return to New Zealand takes on a new and unwelcome urgency.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 240

Dimensions: 152 x 229 mm

Publication Date: 06-09-2023

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Together. Imagine a world without trees. A world that is in many ways like our world, but where magnificent canopies, tree climbing and leaves rustling in the breeze are now only distant memories. Until a young girl comes along, a girl who is brave and spirited and willing to follow where her imagination takes her. Through Olive's adventures in the world of trees we are reminded of nature's extraordinary power and beauty, and her actions ultimately sow the seeds of new life in her own world. From the mind and pen of bestselling author Luke Adam Hawker, The Last Tree is a powerful evocation of the fragility of our natural world and a magnificent celebration of its beauty.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 64

Dimensions: 192 x 244 mm

Publication Date: 26-06-2023

Thirteen-year-old Evan Hanson is always the last in her family to know what's going on; at least, that's how it feels. When her brother gets drafted to Vietnam, her anti-war mother takes him to Canada, leaving Evan and her younger, special needs brother with their army-officer father—who, unwilling to shoulder the burden of caring for his kids, takes them to their grandmother's roadside cafe and home. At Eat and Get Gas, Evan encounters a cast of characters she both likes and fears and eventually learns a big family secret that changes how she feels about everyone and everything.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 254

Dimensions: 140 x 216 mm

Publication Date: 06-06-2023

Hannah is in a mental health unit, in shock and rendered speechless following the sudden death of her husband and baby son one rainy night – for which she feels unspeak-able guilt. She pays little attention to her institutional surroundings as events play and replay inside her head. There is no way out, no way back, and no future she can possibly imagine, just an endless, unbearable present. Huia is also there, a long-term resident who lives entirely in her own inner world, a woman who seems unable to communicate. Her mutterings, her sleeve-plucking, her foot-tapping? Well, that’s just Huia. But who is she? What is her story and why does she play on Hannah’s mind? No one else pays attention to Huia’s condition, but Hannah is drawn to the mystery of the older woman … Huia has something to teach Hannah, if only Hannah pays attention – and she does. Gradually drawn out of her own web of misery, Hannah learns to read Huia and decides to follow the tiny clues back to the source and discover the truth of Huia. In the process, she uncovers the strange bonds that unite them and finds it might, after all, be possible to save her own life – that families can and should heal. And Huia is her path to redemption. Two women, two literally unspeakable tragedies, two families, one powerful and unforgettable story. No one should ever be made to feel invisible. And you are never alone.

Bind: paperback

Publication Date: 10-07-2023

Landfall is New Zealand’s foremost and longest-running arts and literary journal. Published twice a year, each volume showcases two full-colour art portfolios and brims with vital new fiction, poetry, cultural commentary, reviews, and biographical and critical essays. Bringing together a range of voices and perspectives, from established practitioners to emerging voices, Landfall is an exciting anthology that has its finger on the pulse of innovation and creativity in Aotearoa today. Landfall 245, Autumn 2023 edition, announces the winner of the 2023 Charles Brasch Young Writers’ Essay Competition, a yearly competition that encourages young, up-and-coming writers to explore the world around them through words. The winning essay will be published in Landfall 245, alongside the judge’s report from Landfall editor, Lynley Edmeades. Also featured in Landfall 245 is exciting new literature and art from across Aotearoa, bringing together our country’s blend of unique voices to create a vibrant new issue that celebrates our wonderful writers, artists and reviewers.

Bind: paperback

Dimensions: 150 x 230 mm

Publication Date: 30-05-2023

Strong Words 3 showcases the best of the best of Aotearoa New Zealand’s contemporary essays from 2021 and 2022. Selected from entries into the Landfall Essay Competition, these essays are explorative, illuminating, provocative, beautifully written and – most of all – inspiring. Strong Words 3 is packed with Aotearoa New Zealand’s most compelling new writing on contemporary issues. It is essential reading. A central part of New Zealand’s literary landscape since 1997, the annual Landfall Essay Competition is Aotearoa’s most prestigious essay writing competition. Every year these essays open up new avenues of thought, explore new ways of looking at contemporary issues and bring new narratives to the forefront. Past winners include Airini Beautrais, Ashleigh Young, Gregory O’Brien, Diana Bridge, Elizabeth Smither, Tracey Slaughter, Laurence Fearnley and Alie Benge. The biennial Strong Words series was launched in 2019 and gathers the most powerful winning, shortlisted and commended Landfall Essay Competition writing within the covers of one book. Among the rich reading featured in Strong Words 3 are the 2021 and 2022 Landfall Essay Competition winners: ‘The New Man’ by Andrew Dean, a politically and socially complex piece that traces Dean’s ancestry and examines New Zealand’s shamefully long record of anti-Semitism; and ‘Lumpectomy’ by Tina Makereti, a personal and political exploration of the body and its boundaries, and health care (and its boundaries) in Aotearoa. Other essayists featured in Strong Words 3 tackle topics such as grief, lost language, poetic childhood recollections, gender, the long aftermath of colonisation, the nature of traumatic memory, and working as a comedian while solo parenting. CONTRIBUTORS Maddie Ballard, Tīhema Baker, Rachel Buchanan, Jayne Costelloe, Lynn Davidson, Andrew Dean, Charlotte Doyle, Jessica Ducey, Susanna Elliffe, Bonnie Etherington, Norman Franke, Gill James, Claire Mabey, Tina Makereti, Alexis O’Connell, Sarah Ruigrok, Maggie Sturgess and Susan Wardell

Bind: paperback

Pages: 240

Dimensions: 165 x 215 mm

Publication Date: 26-07-2023

Rich and varied with a strong sense of history and change, Blackball as the hub and centre - the returning place - is so poignant and real and honest. New cultures and changes but still whanau. I loved it.’ Paddy Richardson. The novel follows three Blackball children, from the 1908 strike through to the turn of the century, as they lead diverse lives which encompass left politics,WW1, the Spanish Civil War, the Paniora, the saga of relationships, sexuality and gender, with a return to Spain to ground whakapapa and respond to new challenges. Solidarity, n. Holding together, mutual dependence, community of interests, feeling and action. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English. 'Characters are detailed, brilliant and flawed. Both passionate and dismissive.' Leigh Cookson.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 288

Dimensions: 150 x 230 mm

Publication Date: 01-06-2023