21 January 2010

Ithaca in the media, or, thank god I'm not such a bad publicist as I feared

I certainly wouldn't claim to be a good publicist, that would be going too far, but I'm delighted that more people will find out about Ithaca Island Bay Leaves: a Mythistorima by Vana Manasiadis because of my efforts.

My first triumph is that one of the poems from Ithaca - Son of Chaos - is the Thursday poem in the Dominion Post. You'll find it in the little tabloid-size arts section. It's at the bottom of the page, and a little squashed, and they got the title a teeny bit wrong, but I'm delighted nevertheless.

The second exciting thing to happen this week is that Vana is going to be interviewed about her book by Lynn Freeman for the Arts on Sunday programme on Radio New Zealand. It's going to play on 31 Jan. I'll be sure to post a link to it when it's up on their website.

You can read my media release about Ithaca here on The Big Idea website: http://www.thebigidea.co.nz/connect/media-releases/2010/jan/64810-greek-myths-walk-into-wellington-poetry, and I've sent it to various media. Now I shall await the hordes of journalists...

03 January 2010

Happy new year, and Turbine

Happy new year! For me so far it has been a pretty subdued one. I hope the rest of the year won't be though. I'm hoping for a year of growth and action.

Turbine online literary magazine was published late last year, and includes work by several people of importance to me. I haven't read through all of it yet, but want to point out in particular new work by Vana Manasiadis, whose first collection I just published (Ithaca Island Bay Leaves: a Mythistorima). As well as her two poems 'Was it Only a Scratch' (which is particularly exquisitely beautiful) and 'Essay', there are sound files of her reading them - and she reads very well.

Helen Heath, whose debut chapbook, Watching for Smoke, I published in October, has five poems from a longer series (Nostos – Ithaka) included, and also fascinating excerpts from her reading journal.

And among many other notable contributors I'm pleased to see new work from Emma Barnes, 'Landslide' and 'Last Year'.