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BLACK
PEPPER blackpepperpublishing.com bpepper  blackpepperpublishing.comONLINE PURCHASE AVAILABLE Relay-Reading of Homer Rieth's Epic Poem WIMMERA at the Nati Frinj Festival -- Saturday 29 October 2011 -- at the Nattimuk Pub -- from 12 Noon to 12 Midnight Wimmera
was shortlisted for
The Age Poetry Book of the Year 2010 |
 Black Pepper is one of the livelier new houses that has sprung up after the large publishers decided to exit poetry publishing Geoffrey Lehmann The Weekend Australian, November 2009 |
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RECENT TITLES  Hidden
Mirranda Burton ISBN 9780646559063 RRPAUD $20.00 GRAPHIC NOVEL "At first glance, Mirranda Burton's art room is a hidden world full of strange eccentric characters and mysterious minds. But stay a while and in that room you'll find all the joy and sadness of life, the pain and comfort of community, and the ultimate meaning of art. In Hidden Mirranda Burton is writing about what matters most, and she does so with such gentle humanity and wisdom. It is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read." Dylan Horrocks, author of Hicksville A BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL OF 2011 WINNER READINGS BOOKS In a simple yet effective visual style reminiscent of Persepolis
but wholly its own - and peppered with some pictures so vivid as to be
photographic - local artist Mirranda Burton draws on her time spent as
an art teacher for those with intellectual disabilities. Her tales are
hopeful, dramatic, always emotionally involving, and never
condescending. – Fiona Hardy, Readings Carlton See some of Mirranda's artwork on Isiiad.com created during her current residency at Dunmoochin  The Bearded Chameleon Chris Mooney-Singh ISBN 9781876044718 RRPAUD $25.95 POETRY New work from Chris Mooney-Singh, an Australian poet who commutes between Australia, Singapore and India. The poems are set in India, which beguiled him in 1989 to adopt the Sikh way of life. Like the chameleon of the title poem, he adapts with sharp visual detail and comic irony. There are sparkling character portraits, e.g. of Mrs Pritima Devi. He has a story-teller’s eye and a lyricist’s sense of music. His poems reflect an inspiration which is perhaps unique to Australian poetry. Mark Roberts, The Rockford Street Review  The Peastick Girl FEB '12 RELEASE Susan Hancock ISBN 9781876044749 RRPAUD $39.95 FICTION The story of Teresa Matheson, her sisters Mollie and Cass, and the untimely and mysterious death of their mother. Teresa has returned to Wellington after five years in Melbourne where she has written a quest novel for younger readers, had two affairs, and met the demon Arkeum. The Peastick Girl is a complex tragi-comedy of manners. a lyrical, understated intensity of emotion that is almost unbearable to read Fia Clendinnen, ABR $39.95 by direct order (including postage & handling) press here to pay by PayPal - or send cheque payment to Black Pepper Publishing 403 St Georges Rd, North Fitzroy VIC 3068 SEE 'HOMER'S EPIC' ON ABC1 LANDLINE OVER 2,200 COPIES
SOLD  "Homer
Rieth's 359-page epic sequence dizzyingly gobbles up the landscape with
its catalogues of towns and surnames, jamming information and history
into a weird semi-religious commemoration of place: 'Chanceless ghosts
wander the hauntedplains/ looking for a breach in a dog-and -post fence... walking sublunary into a Wimmera mirage.' Lines hurtle down the centre of each page with descriptions and remembered tales rushing into each other in densely decorative, often repetitive language bunched with Australianisms: 'The water drags its feet at Litchfield/ it's a Mallee mood he says/ squinting at the sun/ they can all go to blazes.'" Gig Ryan's citation for Wimmera as a shortlisted title for The Age
Poetry Book of the Year 2010. Photo: Homer Rieth, 2010 One of Australia's finest poets Tim Lee, ABC Landline In its spiritual vision, it is reminiscent of the cosmic speculations of Wordsworth and Whitman Justin Clemens, University of Melbourne An impressive achievement, and a remarkable piece of work Paul Kane, Vassar College Wimmera is quite extraordinary Geoffrey Lehmann, The Weekend Australian, 7 November 2009 Grand in conception and impressively detailed in execution, this is a significant achievement indeed, and a major contribution to Australian literature Brian Edwards, Australian Book Review, December 2009  Anne of the Iron Door A NOVELLA Alan Loney ISBN 9781876044695 RRPAUD $26.95 FICTION A tale of Gutenberg and his mistress, Anne of the Iron Door, set in Strasbourg in 1436. In this extraordinary novel historical records weave the remarkable life of Anne. A world of deceit, betrayal, disease, unicorns, playing cards, the birth of printing and a strange tale of mutually unrequited love. Alan Loney’s work has always been at the cutting edge of New Zealand’s place in world literature Robert Creeley ALAN LONEY ANNOUNCED THE WINNER OF THE 2011 JANET FRAME AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN POETRY 6 MAY 2011  This Woman Adrienne Eberhard ISBN 9781876044725 RRPAUD $28.95 POETRY From the D’Entrecasteaux Channel to Canton and the eighteenth century to the present, these poems investigate ways in which physical places create fundamental emotional spaces. They give us an intimate view of our earthly presence. The title poem reminds us of what it means to be human, and a woman. landscapes of the body, mind and heart Adrian Caeser, Westerly  The Gentle Art of Tossing Alan Cornell ISBN 9781876044688 RRPAUD $27.95 FICTION A comic novel about Ches Fanning, a sportscaster reduced to calling sheep dog trials who discovers a willowy young dart player Sam Alley. He becomes her manager and promoter and takes her to England where she competes in the TV series Double Tops. Will Sam make it to the top? A comic tale of the Old Dart and the New  History
of the Day by Stephen Edgarauthor of Other Summers His poems are more sheerly beautiful from moment to moment than those of any other modern poet Clive James, Times Literary Supplement Here is a work which dares, in a postmodern, Microsoft era, to entertain serious aesthetic contemplations Michelle Cahill, Mascara Literary Review On the short list of the best living practitioners of verse, rhymed or blank Joshua Mehigan, Poetry (Chicago)  Other Stories
Wayne Macauley ISBN 9781876044664 RRPAUD $26.95 FICTION From the
acclaimed novelist and winner
For anyone who thrills to a
hypnoticof The Age Short Story Competition comes his much-awaited collection of short fictions. He makes the familiar seem eerie, like a Jeffrey Smart painting. In these satirical tales and fables of the outer suburban hinterland he imaginatively explores the margins of our culture. prose style and incisive social satire, I would urge you to discover his work Martin Shaw, Readings Monthly   This book isn’t just a good collection of short stories; it’s an exceptional work of Australian literature Wayne
Macauley should be recognized as one of Australia’s best living writers
– that he isn’t is an indictment of Australian literary culture. This
is one of the best books by an Australian I’ve read all year. Do
yourself
Emmett Stinson, 3RRR and Known Unknownsa favour and go buy it now Macauley is a
compelling voice in contemporary Australian literature... Other Stories
showcases his willingness to see - and interrogate - aspects of
Australian culture that normally pass under the radar. Macauley
is a spry and compassionate humorist of the postmodern soul.
In
lamenting the marginalisation of art from politics, he writes it back
into the picture.
Cameron Woodhead, The
Age, 23 October 2010(Pick of the Week, Fiction) His
fiction deals in parables and allegories, satirical fantasies of the
bureaucratised, neo-liberal world, and yarns that read like the dreams
of some collective suburban unconscious; he is a writer of great
purity, combining social critique, fertile imagination and the highest
aesthetic scruples. His work is some of the best fiction Australia has
to offer... the sardonic exaggerations of these stories have such
clarity of outline, and the writing is so controlled, that they have
the graphic power of the very best cartoons. Macauley’s work is dark
and more than tinged with melancholy; it is also often wildly funny.
Like Bail and Murnane, he is one of Australia’s deadpan visionaries, a
teller of tall and cerebral tales.
Owen Richardson, The
Sunday Age, 24 October 2010(Review of the Week, Books: "He is one of Australia's deadpan visionaries") "In
the dog days of summer, when the earth rolls and
sighs and a heat shimmer wobbles and distorts everything in the middle distance and beyond, who has not wanted, as evening falls, to take their mattress and pillow outside and sleep like a well-heeled vagabond under an open sky? In Boxstead Court, in Keilor Downs, as evening fell and the stars came out on just such a night as this, Michael Ebeling, the panel beater, who had not had a very good day, decided to do exactly that. He took the mattress from his bed and laid it down in the street, away from the fluorescent streetlight that threw down a cold-hearted glow. He took off his shirt, his pants, his socks and lay with his arms by his side." from 'One Night'  Colombine, New & Selected Jennifer Harrison ISBN 9781876044657 RRPAUD $28.95 POETRY Colombine unusually contains two sets of ravishing new poems, the title sequence and another called Fugue. The poems selected from her previous collections, from the Anne Elder Award-winning Michelangelo's Prisoners to her fourth book, Folly & Grief, illustrate the depth of her talent. Jennifer Harrison is astonishing. She comes from a place that was previously unknown Alan Loney COLOMBINE SHORT LISTED FOR THE 2010 WESTERN AUSTRALIAN PREMIER'S BOOK AWARDS "A
major contribution to Australian poetry which demonstrates Harrison’s
evolving career and mastery. Its depth of intellectual and emotional
registers, in addition to its sustained craft, makes this poetry
demanding yet also immensely rewarding and enjoyable." demonstrates a fine capacity for registering sensuous life while taking the reader on a variety of compelling intellectual and imaginative journeys. Australian Book Review Book of the Year citation 2011 (Paul Hetherington)  Rockling King Hugh Tolhurst ISBN 9781876044671 RRPAUD $25.95 POETRY Like his first book, Filth and Other Poems, Rockling King should be kept out of reach of children. This bravura collection is profoundly sane, philosophical (in the sense of corrupting the minds of the young), at times political and often acutely witty poems. It continues his conversational embrace of inner city culture Classical (but post-barbarian in technique) Adam Aitken, The Australian's Review of Books          
BLACK PEPPER PICK OF THE SEASON  NICHOLAS PLAYFORD'S SHORT STORY COLLECTION The Prisoner Gains a Blurred Skin (1995) He
felt his sore feet dissolving as the Earth turned, hiding the
incandescent Sun from view. Here was the answer to the question of why
pain and suffering continued and hopelessness and the loneliness of
apparent individuality were not ended; to preserve the purity of a more
munificent charity. He could not remember his name, the anchor of his
person; was it Julian, Lisa, Eunice, Chaim, Lucy or John? His uncouth
clothes fell away from him and his elastic, aguish arms bristled with
tiny spines and were covered with fluff and feathers.
His fourteen tales of the imagination, of bizarre transformations, are in the tradition of Poe and Borges. Fringe citizens of Australian society are revealed in ways which haunt us. His microscopic vision of how the senses affect his characters transforms our perception of their lives. some of the stylistic flamboyance, the pleasure in the texture of language, which is like Beckett’s early fiction
Brenda Walker, Australian Book Review
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GirlThe Bicycle Thief An Imaginary Mother Bron Nicholls 150 MotetsEldershaw Stephen Edgar
NEWS MIRRANDA BURTON'S HIDDEN NAMED A BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL OF 2011 BY READINGS BOOKS
CONTACT
DETAILSJENNIFER HARRISON CITED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR 2011 IN AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW (PAUL HETHERINGTON) ALAN LONEY ANNOUNCED THE WINNER OF THE 2011 JANET FRAME AWARD FOR POETRY OTHER STORIES BY WAYNE MACAULEY CHOSEN AS PICK OF THE WEEK (FICTION) BY THE AGE AND REVIEW OF THE WEEK (BOOKS) WIMMERA RECEIVES HEAD NOTICE IN ONLINE POETRY JOURNAL THE CHIMAERA HOMER RIETH SHORTLISTED FOR THE AGE POETRY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2010 AND THE BLAKE POETRY PRIZE 2010 ADRIENNE EBERHARD’S POEMS FEATURE IN TRANSLATION ON NEW FRENCH AUDIO LITERATURE SITE SECOUSSE ANDREW SANT POEM FEATURES IN ELIZABETH BISHOP'S HOUSE FOR HER CENTENARY NEW ALL PUBLICATIONS BROWSE FROM A-Z BY TITLE BROWSE FROM A-Z BY AUTHOR TITLES BY YEAR ESSAYS AND TALKS LINKS SUBMISSIONS POLICY HISTORY Other
Summers
Stephen Edgar Some of the finest lyric poetry to have been written anywhere in recent times Gregory Kratzmann ABR The printing of a masterpiece Alan Loney This gem of a book... reminiscent of writers such as Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco Fiona Capp The Age The Invention of Everyday Life Nicolette Stasko As graceful and compelling as Woolf’s early 20th-century experiment with consciousness Stella Clarke The Australian |
