11 February 2009

For our February show I’ll be talking with David Howard of The Otago University Press, which this year celebrates its 50th anniversary. Well talk about the humble beginnings of the press and how it has built into a notable publishing house which publishes around twenty books each year. We’ll talk about the kinds of books they publish and also about life in the publishing industry, particularly in these uncertain economic times, and with the effects of the digital age.


The second guest will be Kath Beattie, a Dunedin writer who has recently had her book published by Scholastic, titled My Story: Poor Man’s Gold: The diary of Reuben Radcliffe, Northland, 1899-1900. Kath was a guest on Write On Last year when we talked about a book she had self-pubished, titled Walking backwards into the future: coping with grief through continuing bonds. We’ll be talking about her new book which is about a boy working on the Kauri Gum swamps of Northland, and also we’ll talk about how the process of self publishing went for her, whether she thought it was worthwhile doing it and what advice she would offer to other people considering self-publishing their books.