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Handmade In Melbourne

The first edition of Handmade in Melbourne was published in 2006 to great success and acclaim from the artisan world and the general community. For this, the second edition of Handmade, we decided to not only increase the inclusions, but also change the concept. It’s a Good Food Guide for the handmade world. Artisans are listed A to Z so they are easy to fi nd. Crafts range from boutique chocolate making, ceramics and furniture making to knitting, textile printing and millinery, and everything in between. Features focus on Melbourne’s uniquely creative and crafty suburbs. A dedicated stockists section inspires the reader to seek out the artisans or maybe find some source materials for their own creations

The Portrait

This is a short and extremely powerful new novel from one of Holland's greatest living writers. Reminiscent of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, it is narrated by a canvas, a key eye-witness and participant in an extraordinary story.

A young painter, loved for his fine and true-to-life portraits, receives a commission that is unlike any he's had before: make a portrait of a dead boy. 'You will save a life with it', says the boy's extremely rich father. The painter knows he will have to surpass himself. He takes on the job. But who was the boy? Why is he dead? Why, when the painting is finished, does the father not come to collect it? And why does the painter undertake this painting?

The Portrait is a thrilling novel about the desire to bring someone into the world. But it also about love and death, betrayal and trust, truth and falsehood, and lies and honesty.

It's breathtaking how Willem Jan Otten plays with secrets and riddles that the reader can only unravel at the very end. Demonstrating his rare gifts to English readers for the first time in this book, Otten has written an ingenious, contemporary, and extraordinarily gripping novel.

Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature

A landmark anthology of Australian literary writing across all genres from over two centuries, this is an authoritative collection more than six years in the making, providing a window onto Australian culture. An essential addition to every Australian's library.

'Unprecedented in the breadth of what it offers from both the ancient and the recent literature of the country.' - Thomas Keneally Some of the best, most significant writing produced in Australia over more than two centuries is gathered in this landmark anthology. Covering all genres - from fiction, poetry and drama to diaries, letters, essays and speeches - the anthology maps the development of one of the great literatures in English in all its energy and variety. The writing reflects the diverse experiences of Australians in their encounter with their extraordinary environment and with themselves. This is literature of struggle, conflict and creative survival. It is literature of lives lived at the extremes, of frontiers between cultures, of new dimensions of experience, where imagination expands. This rich, informative and entertaining collection charts the formation of an Australian voice that draws inventively on Indigenous words, migrant speech and slang, with a cheeky, subversive humour always to the fore. For the first time, Aboriginal writings are interleaved with other English-language writings throughout - from Bennelong's 1796 letter to the contemporary flowering of Indigenous fiction and poetry - setting up an exchange that reveals Australian history in stark new ways. From vivid settler accounts to haunting gothic tales, from raw protest to feisty urban satire and playful literary experiment, from passionate love poetry to moving memoir, the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature reflects the creative eloquence of a society. Chosen by a team of expert editors, who have provided illuminating essays about their selections, and with more than 500 works from over 300 authors, it is an authoritative survey and a rich world of reading to be enjoyed. The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature is published in association with Macquarie University, Sydney and Sydney Centre of International PEN.

About General editor: Nicholas Jose General editor Nicholas Jose is a novelist, essayist and scholar. He is Chair in Writing at the University of Western Sydney.

Literary Melbourne

Created to mark the celebration of Melbourne becoming a UNESCO City of Literature, this anthology draws together a selection of the best Melbourne and Victorian writing. Extracts from eighty writers across different genres - crime, literary fiction, poetry, Indigenous stories, migrant tales, theatre, children’s fiction and others - provide a colourful and insightful snapshot of Melbourne’s rich literary heritage.

Read an extract from Literary Melbourne

Readings and Writings: Forty Years in Books

Since opening in 1969, Readings has grown to become one of the most renowned and beloved bookshops in Melbourne and a landmark on the local literary scene. From the first small shop on Lygon Street to its current six locations around town, the shop has long been a focus for local literature, art and culture.

Readings and Writings is a collection of new Australian short stories from writers who have been involved with Readings over the years. All have contributed freely to celebrate the shop and its achievements, and to assist The Readings Foundation in supporting literacy, the arts and the community.

Featuring new stories from Alex Miller, Peter Goldsworthy, Cate Kennedy, Christos Tsiolkas, Mark Seymour, Paddy O’Reilly, Chris Womersley, Kate Holden, Elliot Perlman, Myfanwy Jones, Tony Birch, Steven Amsterdam and more.

All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to The Readings Foundation.

Foreword by Mark Rubbo, introduction by Shane Maloney and stories by:

Alex Miller
Cate Kennedy
Robert Egan
Chris Womersley
Jenny Sinclair
Michael McGirrv
Peter Goldsworthy
Josephine Rowe
Christos Tsiolkas
Myfanwy Jones
Kalinda Ashton
Mark Seymour
Barry Divola
Amy Tsilemanis
Louise Swinn
Chris Grierson
Elliot Perlman
Paddy O'Reilly
Miles Allinson
Tony Birch
Catherine Harris
Paul Mitchell
David Cohen
Leanne Hall
Kate Holden
Steven Amsterdam

See the full cover image by James Gulliver Hancock here.

See independent reviews at The Enthusiast and LiteraryMinded on Crikey.

Read editor Jason Cotter's account of editing the book and see the photo shoot with the writers and editors of the anthology here.

The Bee Hut

Known for her passionate, sensual and edgy poetry, Dorothy Porter was one of Australia's truly original writers. She was twice short-listed for Australia's premier literary award, the Miles Franklin, and her verse novel The Monkey's is a modern Australian classic.

The Bee Hut, her fifteenth book, brings together the poems she wrote in the last five years of her life. By turns expansive and intimate, effusive and contemplative, these poems roam widely: there are journeys into history and to sacred places both mythic and deeply personal. As Andrea Goldsmith writes in her preface, Porter's writing 'glows and shimmers' with passionate curiosity and exuberant love of life.