Books published by Walleah Press

Australian poet Brendan Ryan speaks about his life in this memoir of "the child, the youth and the young man finding his footing amidst the mysteries of cows and the ruthless cycles of the farm, the dry-eyed melancholy of the milking-shed and the mercy of the weather. Here also are the puzzles of existence contained in parents and siblings, in small things and small talk, and the revelations of the school bus and the school. This is a classic memoir: Brendan Ryan''s words come at us directly, and often with startling intensity, from indelible experience. And we feel his need to return." (Don Watson, 2020)

Andrew Burke''s ''New and Selected: 2020'' is the latest of the many poetry collections by this noted writer, an Australian poet who has lived most of his life in Perth. After his birth in Melbourne in 1944, Burke''s family moved west to expand the family business. In his teens, Burke read ''Beat'' writers, and they gained his interest more than school work. He published his first short story at 18. He has written on a daily basis ever since-stories, plays, poems, and-to feed family-advertising material and videos. From 1990, Burke taught creative writing and modern literature at universities, TAFE colleges and writing centres. In 2006, he and his wife Jeanette travelled to China where they taught at Shanxi Normal University, Linfen, and, on their return, they taught indigenous children in The Kimberley area of North West Australia. He now dedicates life fulltime to reading and writing.

Rachel Wenona Guy is an Australian poet. She lives in Castlemaine, Victoria. She creates puppet-based, visual theatre for adults and collaborative multi-media installations examining memory, embodiment and identity. Her creative writing has been published in journals and online within Australia and internationally. In 2015 she was shortlisted for the Whitmore Poetry Manuscript prize. Rachael's collection 'The hungry air' is dedicated to her mother, poet Molly Guy.

Pete Hay is pre-eminent among the guardians of Tasmania’s island’s spirit, his fierce intelligence and compassionate heart resisting those who would ravage, exploit and appropriate its natural beauty, cultural creativity and fraught history for profit and power. Animals and ancestors, people and plants, the lost and the loved, the humus and the human, the artist and the artefact, the books and the birds, the sadness and the stillness, the past and the possible, the humour and the horror all find voice in 'Forgotten Corners'. James Boyce

'Field of Stars' is a new collection of haiku and senryu by Tasmanian poet Lyn Reeves.Lyn is a poet, fiction writer, editor and mentor who has guest-edited poetry for several poetry and haiku journals.

This volume smples the poetry of twenty-four poets associated with the State of Victoria who were publishing significant work during the First World War. The collection is as much a social and cultural map of women's attitudes and occupations as it is a poetry anthology.

'Journey' is a new collection of poems by Australian poet Jan Colville, who was born in Melbourne, and moved to Tasmania in 1946. Her inspirations are Robert Adamson, Mark Tredinnick, Mary Oliver, Billy Collins and most Tasmanian poets. Her poems cover autobiography, science, social commentary, philosophyand occasionally magic realism.

Ryan draws poetry from the tough work of dairy farming and factories, poetry that transcends time and class, it's a joy to read this book, laced with dry humour and a complex humanity. Hard edged yet inviting. Ryan has a light touch and a gathering depth. 'The Lowlands of Moyne' is rich with living, an exciting and positive book, poetry that glows in the darkness.Robert Adamson

The history of the treatment of mental illness is a story of neglect and ignorance, resilience and rebellion, and, in the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century, outright cruelty. There is much to be learnt from that history. This poignant and provocative collection is a maverick biography of an institution established in New Norfolk in Tasmania in 1827, finally closing in 2001. The poems, narratives, reflections, records past and present collude to create powerful reminders of forgotten or forsaken lives and the impetus to treat mental illness with compassion and open-mindedness. Sarah Day