Bøker utgitt av Ginninderra Press

With These We will Never Go Hungry is a collection of short stories exploring the human condition. Each story is a unique vignette blending prose with the everyday. Tackling themes of loss, domestic violence, death, rebirth, childhood and motherhood this collection sees a keen and poignant eye combined with a succinct turn of phrase, the author aims to reveal much more than each story proclaims.

In his eleventh poetry collection, John Jenkins displays a boldness and creative variety, across a wide sweep of subject matter, which should hold great appeal to readers. Here are poems of heartfelt emotion balanced against playful humour, plus jabs of fast wit and satirical asides, plus serious reflection on some pressing political and social issues of our times. There are also long-form prose poems, often of considerable imaginative daring, and also mini poems and shorter lyrics. Many have a lively formal balance and hypnotic beauty. Altogether, Jenkins takes us on a rich and engaging journey, into the heart of modern Australian poetry.

'When I see a review that starts, "X is a fine observer...", my mind numbs over. I see X at a desk, staring out a window wrestling the chaos into order. Reality isn't like that, more like lurching through corridors with a hand-held camera. An open mind, in the grand sense, is open to everything, even its own uncertainties and wild imaginings, with an ever-shifting focus and perspective, crowds of thoughts jostling for space on the page to make their voices heard. This is more like Carolyn's world, vigorous, engaged, life on the wing or on the run, the life we lead, follow negotiate or are just intrinsically...in. Raw chaos is unreadable, so of course there is craft at work. This book is eminently readable, busy, intelligent and full of life. From haunted interiors, doctor's surgeries and exercise classes, the world of books, music, galleries, film and theatres, parks, uncosy domestic scenes and distant past ever slipping out of reach...the familiar morphs into strangeness, the bland into menace, then back again the other way. Enjoy the ride.' - John CareyJohn Carey

Dear Yukie is the third part of a verse novel series (including Leopardwood and Kirinya) exploring how we are together, with our history and our environment. From the author of The Water Cart.

In 1984, after a somewhat acrimonious move out of the National Library of Australia, the newly minted National Film and Sound Archive took up residence in the old Institute of Anatomy in Canberra. From the first day, it seems, living archivists were not the only occupants of the building. The place had a colourful history associated with human and other animal remains, including racehorse Phar Lap's heart and what was thought to be Ned Kelly's skull. The fine art deco Institute building mostly cleared of soft tissue war-wounds floating in jars of preservative, as well as articulated skeletons, standing tall in elegant display cases. Within a year or two, as the beginner-archivists settled in, struggling with issues of identity and management, limited funding to preserve the nation's sound and moving image heritage, workers began to see and to hear things. An accusation persisted that film and sound had been 'deceitfully' ripped out of the National Library. Also, sound and moving image seemed incompatible bed-fellows. Could that have been a cause of disturbances at the Archive? People saw pestering spirits on balconies and in shady corridors. Incomprehensible voices hung in the air. There was nothing in the Occupational Health and Safety Manual that covered accepted behaviour and best practice in haunted buildings. But the author found Shakespeare helped. The Bard's works provided, perhaps, the largest catalogue of paranormal occurrences to compare and contrast with the encounters archivists described. Before long the National Film and Sound Archive was being touted as Australia's most haunted building. This book presents stories from that haunting. Investigating likely causes, it offers a tentative explanation as to why ghosts seemed to arise to bother the living.

Scrapbooks and Broken Strings recounts Jude Murphy's formative years set firmly in the Australian 80s. After a shocking tragedy pierces her childhood, Jude struggles to manage her grief, endure the challenges of young adulthood, navigate a series of tumultuous relationships and traverse the terrain of motherhood and post-natal depression. In this courageously candid and often darkly humorous memoir, Jude shares her battle with drugs, alcohol, illness and madness. Well paced and written in a conversational tone, Scrapbooks and Broken Strings will take you through a range of emotional highs and lows before concluding with a sense of hope.

Conflict is a normal part of everyday life yet it is often something that people try to avoid or ignore in the hope that it will go away. Conflict Management provides useful information on how to embrace conflict and manage it in effective ways that enhance and strengthen relationships. The book provides important foundation knowledge for conflict management and mediation practice and is suitable for students and practitioners in mediation and conflict management as well as providing useful skills for everyday living. Areas of practice discussed include family, parent-adolescent, adult-elder, workplace, justice, neighbourhood, building, planning and environment, and international peace and security.

At twenty, Anna married an ambitious computer scientist. Now, twelve years later, they have three young daughters. Yet something vital is missing. He is more away than at home, and she dreams of an equal love. But she dreads the price of breaking free. Within a year, the marriage shatters and her children are abducted overseas. In the vengeful shadow of their father's blame, how can she nurture and protect those who were the crown and comfort of her life? The true-life story of a desperate choice and its heart-breaking yet redemptive consequences for Anna and her daughters.

A trade unionist conceives a grand poem which will encompass his whole life since World War II. Soon he finds he must include his grandfather in 1915, his mother in Hobart in 1935, his father in Egypt with the air force, George Orwell in Spain, a German pilgrim, some French resisters shot in 1944, Soviet sailors drowned in a sub, Cole Porter, Venice, Bob Dylan, Hans Holbein, Anne of Cleves, Trotsky and Tsar Nicholas II. His daughters will be in there, and his wives, and his work. There will be politics, dreams, elections, paintings, mountains, funerals, vineyards, folk music. He cannot evade his implication in dispossession and oppression. These poems try to make some sense of our disquieting times - without certainty, without buttressing from religion or ideology. There's nothing else like this.

'Williamson presents great images and plays so well with colour in this manuscript. His environmental poems shine with naked engagement.' - Les WicksA new collection from the author of Ties to Red Hill, Edge of Southern Bright, To the Spice Islands, Moments from Red Hill and The DNA Bookshelf.

Exploring issues like the need to respect a fragile environment and the rights of marginalised people (with quite a focus placed on migration), this collection is underpinned by the belief we should show greater care for fellow humans; for our world; for other living things.

'There is a fierce tenderness in these poems of happy remembrance and devastating sorrow. With so much love expressed so beautifully in the first half of the book, we instinctively fear what is to come, as if all that light cast shadows across our path. Though the death of a loved partner - also a poet - is deeply personal, these passionate poems open out and touch us with a consoling grief.' - Paul Kane'"e;Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, stains the white radiance of eternity."e; - Percy Bysshe Shelley. From the first poem that speaks of the "e;delicate prints of oyster catchers"e; to the comfort of a ragged dressing gown, the protective love of the kahu-feather cloak and the "e;butcher-bird that perches very close"e;, Pip, as a poet and wordsmith transports us into an experience that shines multicoloured with the beauty of a stained glass window. Each poem is a facet that adds to the mosaic, each poem a gentle play of light, illuminating page by page. For those of us who know life is a gift and are called to the hard work of hope, The Climb Back is invaluable.' - Colleen Keating'Poignant, sensual, spiritual, sorrowful, and funny, Pip Griffin's latest poetry collection The Climb Back encompasses a life richly lived. What is not to admire about a poet who can write lines as diverse as "e;the shags open their sodden wings like flashers' raincoats"e; and "e;cherry trees in blossom line the streets like flower girls at a wedding"e;. This book is a hymn to New Zealand, Pip's homeland, and a celebration of its landscape, wildlife and the Maori language. But even above this, it is a memorial to Ted, her friend, lover and fellow poet. If he were still here, I'd be clinking my glass with his, to celebrate her achievement.' - Mark Mahemoff

'Robert Frost said, "e;Poetry is saying one thing in terms of another."e; David Kelly's unique craft, showcased in planes, birds, cats, things, does exactly that. Don't be fooled by the simplicity of the title. Aspects of life, observation and appreciation are embodied in these poems. Strong lines and often unusual vision are the hallmark of David Kelly's writing.' - Helene Castles'Dear David, I have nothing to offer but my slackness, that and the fact of my birthday weekend and getting to bed at about 8 a.m. this morning. If it's any consolation I really like the MS and will get you something glowing earlyish next week.' - Tug Dumbly'In a tete-a-tete between sincerity and the literal, David Kelly's poetry raises its head above the literary parapet to personably (colloquially, proletarianly maybe) see and say exactly what's what. This book of his shorter poems does the job with wit, sentiment & charm. '- Kris Hemensley

Lunacy is a crime when Lizzie sets foot in the new colony of Victoria, Australia, in 1855. Based on extensive research, this is the story of her struggle with mental illness - at a time when limited medical knowledge about her condition existed, stigma was omnipresent, and treatment was archaic and inhumane. Shrouded in secrecy for more than a century, her story, as told through her own voice and that of her daughter and estranged husband, begins with her journey from her home in England with three young children in tow, to her eventual incarceration in gaol and Victoria's first mental institution - Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum - where she spent the last four decades of her life.

'In The Density of Compact Bone, Magdalena Ball stuns with her elegantly constructed paean to earth, sky, water and her requiem to loss, both ecological and personal. Luxuriating in finely crafted imagery of plant and bird life and intimate personal portraiture, this poetry collection teems with meticulously sculpted syntax, skilfully assured language choices and masterfully wry, wistful, wishful wisdom. From the atomic to the astronomic, the poet bears heart-aching witness to our "e;hardwired to self-destruct' "e;neon excess"e;. A love song to beauty and loss riddled with existential questions and shattering observations, blending mystery, myth and metamorphosis, this work is both organically inventive and ingeniously self-aware.' - Anne Casey'"e;Begin with tears. There will not be enough"e;, Magdalena Ball starts the poem "e;How to make Lokshen Kugel"e;, an apt metaphor for so many of these apocalyptic poems that address the trials that time presents to us. It is Ball's response to these challenges that is truly breathtaking. As she concludes the poem "e;Mitzvah"e;, "e;Your voice carries. / You are setting yourself free / you are free."e;' - Charles Rammelkamp 'Magdalena Ball's poems are replete with images and symbols and sometimes pictorial representations of our guilt and desires. Her poems sometimes sing of the extinct creatures who breathed their last to question us for our inhuman actions, nature and its "e;objective correlative' in poetic diction. Magdalena Ball captivates her readers with cogitations on dreams, failures, moments of joy and despair, contemplations of serious existential truths and quest for the same. Her poems transport us to a land of ecstasy, the parabolic pathway of moving away and returning to the same trajectory of existence with a new promise or at least a complacency of some kind, or just a sense of well-being. Her poems are a must-read!' - Ketaki Datta

Often in the gap between our thoughts and dreams and the reality of our daily lives there exist haunting memories. These memories can be dangerous places. Alternating between the sunlit and moonlit dreamscapes of island life and the stark interiors of suburban family existence, Dangerous Places delves the depths of a struggle between desire and duty, between dreams and domesticity - and the myths we sometimes use to make meaning of our lives.

For me, poetry is a symbolic form of language that embodies a multitude of meanings that are deeply sensed in the mind and body and require expression. Reading, writing and speaking poems out loud are all ways of connecting with our selves and expressing this emotional self to others. Therefore, poetry is both a solitary occupation and a social communication that defies logic and the intellect.

'No Straight Lines is a book of warm, but never soggy, poems. It is a book where empathy shines. Robyn Black cares about the outsiders of our society. She cares about the natural environment as well, but not in a gushy 'isn't it lovely' way. She appreciates the harshness, the brutality out there. The poems about her family, dealing with elderly mental deterioration, are especially impressive. Tightly written, with occasional surprising twists, the poems in No Straight Lines will fly arrow straight into the heart and mind of any reader with half a soul.' - David Kelly

Wryly humorous and scarifyingly honest, Coolamon Girl is a beautifully crafted memoir of a daughter terrified of her mother. Scarred by her mother's conservatism and palpable dislike of her body and her sexuality, Di escapes her fraught home life and the stultifying narrowness of her 1950s and 60s small country town. Feeling lost in the big outside world, she travels the bumpy journey into adulthood full of adolescent doubts and fears - how she looks, how others see her, how to navigate sex and love. And finally, she discovers what she values as a woman. Told with clarity and poignancy, painful scenes are rendered unflinchingly, yet the whole is suffused with humour and compassion. Di's coming-of-age is a triumph of recovery from betrayal and Coolamon Girl captures the glory of reaching for a bigger life and the power of the universal within the particular, as relevant today as when she lived it.

'Freyberg's sexy landscape is the Kings Cross of queer history; a dream/ memoire, sharply observed, calling full blast from an era bulldozed and broken. Liquid with desire, brutal and beautiful, in all the drawn out tenderness maturity brings.' - Kerri Shying'The Crumbling Mansion really rips down the page. It's a series of interrelated snapshots and vignettes that read like mini chapters in a verse novella. The poems are tactile and visceral and conjure well a scene: the crumbling mansion is a gothic pile of many rooms- art, wine, philosophy and music; a burgeoning, blossoming, sweaty, yearning sexuality and desire for long denied and luridly painted fruit. There's the shadow of AIDS and the shadow of fathers: anxiety and a desperate desire to fill an identity and madly misspend a lost youth. Underpinning it all is the grounding respite and hope of art, and the salvation and identity to be found in artistic creation. There are also some delicate and finely painted pieces of the natural world.' - Tug Dumbly'The denizens of a crumbling mansion coil at the heart of this collection, a shifting multi-vocal performance capturing an inner city milieu frayed by time but gentle in memory. Freyberg is a fearless scribe of personal transformation and regeneration, with an eye for the fleeting nature of glory and joy. He reignites the forgotten voices of Kings Cross and fills them with compassion and yearning. Freyberg's writing has an elasticity of purpose and subject; with loss, the knife edge of gentrification and nostalgia clinging to plangent evocations of nature, injustice and desire.' - Rico Craig

David Williams, seventy-four years old and a long-time resident of Flinders Island, Tasmania, tells the story of his lifelong running adventure. An Unstoppable Runner describes the physical and mental challenges he has encountered in such diverse locations as the blister-making Simpson Desert, muddy New Zealand forests, fun runs, and many international marathons and ultra marathons. It also reflects on the life and running lessons he has learned along the way. His stories will not only inspire men and women of all ages to get off their couches and bring adventure back into their lives, but are also designed to promote health and well-being to the wider community. One of the motivating forces behind writing An Unstoppable Runner was to use it to raise funds for Cancer Council Tasmania, so all profits and royalties from the book will go towards helping cancer sufferers. David has had bowel cancer and he and his wife lost their daughter Allison to this dreadful disease at the too young an age of twenty-eight. The foreword to An Unstoppable Runner has been written by the world-famous runner, Australia's very own Pat Farmer AM. Pat's enthusiasm for us all getting fit and healthy is well known. Apart from running as often and as far as possible, David has lived with his wife Dale on remote Flinders Island in Bass Strait for the past twenty years. When he is not running, David is deputy mayor of the local council and has served the community as a councillor for over fifteen years.

David Bailes was born in Adelaide and later attended primary school in Darwin and then high school in Alice Springs. While living in Alice Springs, David listened to many stories about the pioneering days as remembered by older family members. In Adelaide, David completed an Arts degree at Adelaide University and teaching diploma at Murray Park Teachers College. In 2002, David's interest in the family history led to the discovery of the Aboriginal Bailes. David became very close to Billy Bailes, who was the senior member of their Aboriginal family. Billy's stories and knowledge inspired David to write the fascinating history of their family.

'With a meticulously researched, absorbing verse narrative, Colleen Keating brings Olive Muriel Pink's significant, neglected history to life with distinctive, beautiful imagery. In powerful lyrical stanzas, she tells the story of Olive's struggle for recognition as a female anthropologist, her lifelong work for the rights of the Warlpiri and Arrernte people she loved and lived among, and the creation of her arid garden. "High on a camel swaying to and fro / with a straight back and a broad smile / Olive rides into her future." Olive's persistence, her triumphs and her passion for justice make for uplifting and compelling reading.' - Pip Griffin'Olive Pink is one of Australia's unsung heroines. In this original and deeply moving biographical verse novel, Colleen Keating enables Olive Pink's experiences with Aboriginal people in Central Australia to emerge with sensitivity, intellectual curiosity, understanding and grace. It is a triumph for reconciliation and will surely enter the annals of Australian literature.' - Lyndall Ryan'A play, a dance, books, a proposed film, an opera and now a wonderful narrative poem by Colleen Keating. I wonder what Miss Pink would think about all this attention - her battles and passions appreciated at last!' - Gillian Ward'Olive Pink's life floats off the page - very much the character I've come to know and admire while translating her experience into music across this past decade. Colleen Keating gives us a seriously beautiful work based on research that brings Olive vividly to life. It is wonderful to see the astonishing story of this Australian woman Olive Pink, given the attention she so deserves. Such a visionary.' - Anne Boyd'An invaluable and powerful addition to the story of Australian women who lived their lives working for equality and social justice. A joy to read.' - Elizabeth Keating-Jones