Books published by Ginninderra Press

Susan Fitzgerald has told stories to herself from childhood and has written since she was a teenager. She has had her work published in Under the Rainbow, a collection of work by U3A writers, and in Tamba. Now there's this book, which offers tales of the mischief of boys as they grow into men and of women who have moved on from the choices of girls.

Thomas Hardy once said, ';A tale must be exceptional enough to justify its telling.' I think my story is exceptional. Maybe you will think so too. Whatever one thinks, I have learnt through this story the value of persistence, patience, positive attitude and perseverance such precious qualities in life. There is light at the end of the tunnel, but one has to find the way there.

Cicada Chimes is set over a twenty-four-hour period covering several years in time lapse; it moves from a funeral service in Rookwood, to a honeymoon in Paris, to the morning markets in Serres, Greece, and a church service in Surry Hills. The twenty-four-hour time structure is Helen Koukoutsis' way of exploring the effects of her father's death and mother's grief on her Australian-Greek Orthodox identity. Written with understated humour, these poems smile at the tensions between marriage and motherhood, memory and forgetfulness, and life and death. ';Poignant, bittersweet memories. A journey from Greece to Australia, to Europe and back into the Ithaca of one's self. Poems that are lean, stripped to the bones of language with the calm tenacity of Emily Dickinson. Helen Koukoutsis questions tradition, religion, society, academia, her own strengths and frailties as a daughter, sister, wife, mother. And all the while the chimes of the cicadas in Rookwood Cemetery are ringing in her ears, following. Forever.' Peter Skrzynecki OAM';In her impressive debut collection, Helen Koukoutsis moves among ';homes and tables' from coastal Greece to suburban Australia, across Europe and over the span of literature to bring us a new poetry of everyday experience. These stories of love and grief are threaded together with vitality and care. Kasseri, cicadas and ';thirsting dianthus' crowd together alongside mothers, lovers and daughters. Koukoutsis writes deftly, in sure measure, with Emily Dickinson at one hand and Virginia Woolf at the other.' Kate Fagan

';Renowned songwriter Joe Dolce has long outgrown the pop lyric and moved into a risky domain where recitative, comedy, folk and slapstick build shelters for themselves among social commentary and the poetry of lists. He has a foot, or feet, in diverse realms serious and entertaining and has resolved that he will never record another song that has not been first published as a stand-alone poem. No colleague to his knowledge has yet ventured into this territory yet its potentials for escape from the shiftily High Serious and the narrow criteria of academic critique are obvious. Wit, and the songwriter's freedoms of seeing one's creations recorded by others, are possible bases for a jazz-like shift in the profession of poetry, and music remains available to float logjams that commentary is apt to desiccate. Since coming to Quadrant as a regular contributor, he has built a real following for his work, and we'll miss him when his vogue spreads beyond our pages.' Les Murray

Born in a blizzard, Les Leong is adopted into a Chinese-Australian family. He grows up in the declining gold town of Kiandra in the NSW Snowy Mountains and lives through a time in Australia now long past. Les lives the life of a bushman among a captivating array of characters. He has adventures and misadventures in the city too. As Les ages, he learns what Australia and the high country really mean, and pursues a quest for understanding bequeathed by Aboriginal forebears. Seeing Through Snow is a captivating blend of imagination and history.

Jennifer Chrystie's poems have been published widely in Australia as well as in the UK and US. Her first poetry collection, Polishing the Silver (Ginninderra Press, 2006) was commended in the Fellowship of Australian Writers Anne Elder Award.';This is a thoughtful and diverse collection, rich with imagery Intensely observant and memorable' Lorraine McGuigan, Poetry Monash

';There's a touch of both Dickinson and Larkin in Jennifer Chrystie's mature exhumation of the tales and tropes of family. Figures who could so easily flit like phantoms in her well honed poetry are palpably enjoying an after-life in the poet's ability to redeem through deep understanding. The collection arcs from, at one extreme, the parsimonies of the household, to the transcending delights of the natural world. These poems undo any doubts about the poetic power of the domestic muse.' Kris Hemensley';From a gathered childhood of rabbits and pumpkin, firewood and lamb chops all the marks of dailiness remembered these evocative lyrics move on into adult variegation: into losses, change and travel. Everywhere they are fuelled by the poet's visual acuity.' Chris Wallace-Crabbe';This substantial collection confirms the skills that Chrystie has demon-strated in individual poems previously published: illuminating description and tough exploration of ordinary human experience, and the ability to move, with apparent ease, into its mythic possibilities.' Aileen Kelly

I dont take photographs. Or paint. Instead I use words as my medium my way of capturing what I see and turning it into something meaningful. My hope is that the reader too will be able to see what I have seen, feel what I have felt. This is of course the essence of communication.

Stories of mystery, desire and secret lives. A young woman with a secret walks into the life of an older woman who acts out her own daily pretence. When childhood resentments flare on a fishing trip, a man swims to shore from the boat; his decision changes his life forever. A widow delights in the dance of a bowerbird in her garden until she discovers another presence in the bamboo grove. On his first day out of prison, a man finds he is not yet free. After a chance meeting, a man is unwillingly drawn into the lives of a couple facing a major crisis. A young woman tracks down her mother in London and unexpectedly finds her father as well. From a coastal village in Australia to London and Kyoto, Jennifer Shapcott's stories sparkle with poignancy and humour.

Therese Corfiatis seeks out beauty and spirit in simple things: the curl of a wave, the flight of cockatoos ';yellow-flecked tails flashing / like airborne sunflowers' (';Black Cockatoos'). She searches for ancestral homeland and belonging ';my dispossession torn away / a birthing wound healed up' (';The Bridge at Cskrkos') and presents them to the reader with wonder, honesty and freshness.

A rusty old gate, locked or not, is no barrier to Andy's curiosity. He reckons gates are meant to be walked through or climbed over. And he will. Life's rotten anyway he was suspended from school because of rotten Rezzo and sent to England with his mother, which means he'll miss a whole cricketing summer at home in Aussie! Even worse, his Gran gave him an old green agate marble to take back, she said, to where it belongs. And does the gate lead to an orphanage? Weird kids appear: they don't even have a TV, no technology at all. They don't seem to miss it in their lives, they're busy and happy and let him share in their exploits. But they think Andy's talk of moon landings, of seeing close-up photos of Earth taken from a space station or an orbiting telescope, is all imagination. They accuse him of telling lies. To claim his mum cooks with microwaves and dries washing at the press of a button is as ridiculous as his story of flying halfway round the world in twenty-four hours. However, despite all his high-flying talk, he's friendly enough and even daft enough to think a crystal set is jewellery! For Andy, knowing them is all about growing up and appreciating the basics of life. Over the Rusty Gate is Maureen Mitson's fourth full-length novel and her first in the YA genre. It has a biographical background commended for its presentation of a lifestyle in pre-techno times. It also captures the energies and arguments of young people attempting to come to terms with life's events and learning to understand ';difference' as ';individuality'.

The Fortune Bird, the author's first book of poetry, is a collection of personal lyrics notable for their emotional maturity and their sparkling images. Reading these poems will take you around the world and into a deep well of feeling.Ron Pretty

'The Ablation of Time is a delight. An astonishing variety of birds flit among the pages, and the rural countryside is never far from view. David Atkinson has the rare ability to capture in words those significant moments that make us pause and think.' - Ron Wilkins'David Atkinson is a poet of fine distinctions in subject and in language. He writes of Australian rural life with a critical but reverent attitude stemming from an intimate knowledge of the joy and menace of growing up in the country. David's poems are a rich blend of the most profound and intense experience with a great optimism and faith in human nature. He writes in clear, precise English which is powerful and moving in its simplicity.' - John Egan'Whether capturing scenes from a rural childhood or reflecting on landscape and fauna, David Atkinson's poetry abounds with fresh connections and acute observations. The Ablation of Time bears witness not only to a deeply poetic sensibility but also to the intellectual curiosity of a born naturalist, blessed with a photographic eye for composition and detail.' - Gisela Sophia Nittel

In his interpretation of Antigone, Seamus Heaney says, ';Nobody can be sure they are always right.' Maureen O'Shaughnessy's The Truth about A further attends to this idea through various readings of the myth as portrayed by Sophocles, Brecht, Ted Hughes, Anne Carson and, most particularly, Euripides. Set in contemporary Sydney, among a fictional underworld family, The Truth about A not only considers the issue of whether to obey the law or your conscience but delves into the nature of the creative impulse and the eternal bonds and chasms between generations. Antigone, daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, provokes the fury of the crime-overlord Creon with her profound sense of honour, family and duty. But this spirit of defiance raises questions infinitely more complex than the brute facts of power and order, engendering a meditation on justice, ethics and personal judgement.

Edgar Williams is lost after the tragic death of his wife Jackie and can't find a way to shake off the black dog. Therapy doesn't help. His spiritual son Joe suggests leaving it to God. However, he returns to his boxing club, fellowship with the Freemasons, and his Geelong RSL, which help to fill in the hours of loss. A friend suggests a medium, who tells him of some remarkable developments to come in his life. When intruders ransack his home, Edgar hits the main offender with a golf club, putting him in a coma. In court, Edgar calls the judge fig jam (the acronym of the book's title) and runs away. Finally he is arrested and unwilling to apologise to the over-bearing judge goes to gaol. But happier times are on the horizon and an unexpected turn of events sends Edgar on a path which he never envisaged.

He is just one of many in the refugee camp: an old man, his wife dead, compelled to revisit the past. Unfortunately, what he finds is what he had known all along.It is the only story there is, ever since God looked with favour on Abel and not on Cain: Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated; Ishmael is sent out into the desert, while Isaac becomes the heir; Solomons older brother must die before he can be born to rule. The first-born dies, the second inherits: he should not have been surprised. Inherits what? I never thought to ask.It was never going to be easy being Jesus's younger brother, especially when the woman you love only has eyes for him. Just ask Judas, the Second Son.

Hauntings and obsessions, travellers in jeopardy, lives under siege A ghost story with an erotic twist; a sociopath walking his victims along their fault lines until they crack; a black GI in wartime Brisbane loses his dog tag; an Australian woman on holiday in Romania finds herself implicated in her lover's stolen jewellery fencing activities Eleven compelling stories exploring the unexpected and sometimes terrifying consequences of stepping outside your comfort zone.

Freda Brown was a political activist in the women's, peace, and anti-apartheid movements, both in Australia and overseas. A passionate believer in equality, she occupied her busy life with action and organisation. While some of her greatest achievements can be seen in her work in helping to establish and lead pioneering women's organisations, she travelled widely also in the service of political, peace and anti-racism causes. She was a widely respected activist and led an absorbing and very busy life with her political work both in Australia and overseas. She also worked as a journalist, political party organiser and theatre director. This biography is a long-overdue acknowledgement of the pioneering role Freda played at a time when second-generation feminism was decades away. At a time when women were not supposed to want anything more than being a wife and mother, Freda combined career and family successfully for decades, believed passionately in equality and peace, and fought for the rights of people all over the world. She was a leading member of the CPA long after many had left it, and remained a socialist all her life, preferring to hold her personal values rather than be fashionable. Behind Freda's story lie much bigger cultural, social and political ones: the flowering of alternative political ideas, the development of second-wave feminism, the sexual revolution and the changing nature of reproductive rights, and the blossoming of decolonisation and globalisation. Her legacy underlines the lives of many of us in the 21st century.

';Libby Sommer lays bare the foibles of human nature in her finely observed stories of love and loss in the singles dance scene. Brilliantly drawn with wit, compassion and poignancy, the characters you meet in The Crystal Ballroom are sure to remind you of someone maybe even yourself.' Jan Cornall, Writer's Journey';Libby Sommer exposes the secret lives of the singles who dance at the Crystal Ballroom. Authentic and powerful, this unique book will be loved by the dancers and readers.' Frida Kotlyar, ballroom, Latin and Argentine tango dancer';Libby Sommer's fiction has wit but is essentially serious with a subtle but strong underlying pathos, a wry humour and accomplished satirical tone.' Amanda Lohrey, Patrick White Award winner';Sommer's existentialism is one of the best and most articulate voices of middle-age angst ever.' Richard English, novelist and visiting lecturer, Brunel University London

There are so many words for wanting: longing, yearning, lusting, lacking, craving, desiring, aspiring, dreaming, hungering… To want is to be human, to experience both the agony and the exquisite anticipatory movement towards what is beyond present reality. So, wanting is both spiritual and earthy. It is a relishing of possibilities (yes, fantasy!), but equally, a measuring of the lack at the heart of human life, a restlessness, and sometimes a turbulence: 'Quick, said the bird, / find them, find them, / Round the corner. Through the first gate, / Into our first world, shall we follow…' (T.S. Eliot, 'Burnt Norton'). Wanting Only is a set of poetic meditations on how humans - individuals and collectives - are transformed by what and how they desire.

Jane Williams's Parts of the Main is her chemistry, abuzz in a murmuration of organic electrons that at once forms memory, then problems of translation not solely of words, but in comprehending our modernity. These shape-shifting poems are an assignation of author to grace with it, with her, we travel to Europe, her youth, to longings of elsewhere and an ever developing raison d'tre. - Kent MacCarterJane Williams is a poet who leans out of the frame, who turns your ear if not your head. In Parts of the Main we are caught - sometimes caught out -by her ';days of blue and banter', ';eyeball spoils of war', trees ';falling like the bones of oracles'. She writes the tender, the vulnerable, the unshowable. Sometimes there is a touch of the brogue. Jane Williams answers the question ';Will poetry be enough?' Convincingly. - Lizz Murphy

This collection evokes situations confronting ordinary people in their ordinary lives. The author creates images of loss, love, hatred and warmth of particular characters in particular places as far apart as Scotland and Australia. Against a background haunted by Destiny, people are led or pushed by emotions into a stream of experiences. In ';Whispering Shadows' we learn about the significance of an invitation to a dinner dance during World War II and how it shaped the life of the unnamed narrator. In ';Legacy' we read about the influence of alcohol on the lives of four young brothers. ';Inheritance' and ';Foxy Ladies' bring a lighter tone to the collection to balance other weightier issues. Based on her close observation of the human condition, Rose Helen Mitchell's stories reveal uncanny insights into the emotional state of characters who could be someone the reader knows.

A gallimaufry is a medley of things, originally a culinary term for a stew. One could equally call it a hash, a potpourri or even a hotchpotch. Whichever term you choose, I hope you enjoy this particular recipe, finding it to your taste and easily digestible. It is spiced with ingredients drawn from several countries, moods and styles. The cover picture, which is a composite portrait of the author and his wife, by his daughter, Anna, is from a photographic exhibition called Mixed Emotions, described in The Sydney Daily Telegraph as ';an act of metaphorical self-creation'. That could be said of some of these poems, too.