‘Slippery, and exciting … The stories come at youdirectly, and then turn askance, and then slap youin the face’ Allan Drew ‘Bonsai’ brings together a pioneering collection of flash fiction and associated forms (prose poetry and haibun) from 165 writers in Aotearoa New Zealand, along with intriguing essays on this increasingly popular genre. In 200 small stories of no more than 300 words, where the translucent boundaries between prose and poetry are often transgressed, we discover a vast array of human experience. Here, children race snails, shoot tin cans, learn to fly, and look for Antarctica in a drain pipe, while Schrödinger’s cat dreams of life and death, a dog licks away a woman’s tears, and a peacock guards its human family. Family tensions spill over during trips to the beach, couples get together and fall apart, babies are born – or not born – and parents die. You might find yourself dancing like the cool kids, listening to a neighbour sing in the dark, or watching a tractor catch fire. There are perfect moments in miniature as dew falls on a spider’s web and strangers make eye contact. Composed with precision in a form where every word counts, these carefully chiselled works are provocative, tender and endlessly surprising. About the editors Michelle Elvy is a writer and editor of flash fiction whose recent work appears in ‘New Micro Fiction’(WW Norton, 2018). Among her many editing roles she is editor at ‘Flash Frontier’. Frankie McMillan has been called ‘our maestro of flash fiction’.Her book ‘My Mother and the Hungarians, and other small fictions’ (CUP, 2016) was long-listed for the Ockham Book Awards. James Norcliffe is a poet, editor and writer for children. He is editor at ‘Flash Frontier’and has published nine collections of poetry, including ‘Dark Days at the Oxygen Café’(VUP, 2016).

Bind: paperback

Pages: 296

Dimensions: 165 x 215 mm

Publication Date: 24-08-2018

the everrumble is a poetic imagining of intense focus and sweeping ideas. Zettie's story is fluid and in motion, transcending geographies and time. She stops talking, at age seven, and starts to listen - to the worlds she finds in language and books, and to the people and places she encounters as she moves across continents. Her silence connects her to people, to nature and to the elemental world. Magical and beyond boundaries, this collection focuses on small fragments, taking Zettie, and the reader, inevitably to the place where human history began.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 116

Dimensions: 122 x 198 x .8 mm

Publication Date: 01-12-2019

In the aftermath of the Christchurch terrorist attacks of 15 March 2019, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern declared: ‘We are all New Zealanders.’ These words resonated, an instant meme that asserted our national diversity and inclusiveness and, at the same time, issued a rebuke to hatred and divisiveness. Ko Aotearoa Tātou | We Are New Zealand is bursting with new works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and visual art created in response to the editors’ questions: What is New Zealand now, in all its rich variety and contradiction, darkness and light? Who are New Zealanders? The works flowed in from well-known names and new voices, from writers and artists from Kerikeri to Bluff. Some are teenagers still at school; some are in their eighties. Māori, Pākehā, Pasifika, Asian, new migrants, young voices, queer writers, social warriors … Aotearoa’s many faces are represented in this unique and important compendium. In a society where the arts, especially marginalised arts, are under threat, this anthology shows that creative work can explore, document, interrogate, re-imagine – and celebrate – who we are as citizens of this diverse country, in a diverse world. A list of all contributors can be found at https://wearenewzealand.org/.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 280

Dimensions: 165 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 20-10-2020

A hybrid collection of small fictions that crisscrosses the line between truth and fiction, prose and poetry, past and future. In the other side of better, there is the scent of the sea, the rift and grit of childhood. Sometimes sharp and focused, sometimes dreamlike and expansive, this work captivates on every page. Called a 'masterclass in the short form', this collection by one of our time's best practitioners of the small story is both instructional and engaging. Here, with Michelle Elvy’s the other side of better, are wise reflections cast through refracted light. Here is the scent of the sea, the rift and grit of childhood. Here is an absorbing cinematic poetry in the telling – breathtakingly honest and elegant stories (personal, yet universal) about how we live, how we struggle and, most enduringly, how we thrive. A wondrous collection! ~ Robert Scotellaro Well-turned stories, rich with wit and detail, that explore the spaces between people and places, from the ‘concrete weight’ of history to the secrets of creeks, islands and oceans. ~ Paula Morris A collection that surprises not just because it can, but because it understands the surprises of the world. ~ Erik Kennedy Michelle Elvy uses the economy of the form to keep her powder dry. Often, the full implication – sometimes enormity – of the story is only realised after the reading is over. ~ James Norcliffe Michelle Elvy’s new collection is released in June in conjunction with the 2021 National Flash Fiction Day events, with a launch party in Dunedin followed by readings in Auckland and Christchurch.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 172

Dimensions: 133 x 203 mm

Publication Date: 18-06-2021