Lasavia Publishing

06/11/2024

https://lasaviapublishing.com/love-in-the-age-of-unreason/

A new publication. Love in the Age of Unreason by Mike Johnson.

My first poetry book since Sketches (2023)
Different in spirit from the earlier volume, these poems arise from the topsy-turvy post pandemic world in which language itself battles for traction in an atmosphere of lies and deceit, and love searches for a place to lay its head.

Anything can happen and regularly does in the wide-angled lens of these spinning lines. The world passes through in its carnival masks. Despair and joy gyrate through ribbons of asphalt memories of glass divisions of mind. These poems give off brightly coloured sparks as they probe the fate of love in an age of unreason.

Love in the Age of Unreason by Mike Johnson Anything can happen and regularly does in the wide-angled lens of these spinning lines. The world passes through in its carnival masks. Despair and joy g…

06/11/2024

New Publication: Hecate by Leila Lees

Sharp, observant, gentle, metaphysical, heartbroken and healed. Here, the naturalist and the mystic go hand in hand. Leila Lees writes about nature with sensitivity and exactitude.

Hekate, the enigmatic Greek Goddess of magic, light, dark, the moon, ghosts, medicine, and crossroads stands at the boundary between the divine and the human world.

Hekete is experimental essay-poetry that leads the reader on a Journey into the natural world, and into the essence of minerals, plants and animals.

Hekate by Leila LeesSharp, observant, gentle, metaphysical, heartbroken and healed. Here, the naturalist and the mystic go hand in hand. Leila Lees writes about nature with sensitivity and exactitu…

29/10/2024

Portrait of a Lasavia writer. Lindsay Rabbitt.

Don't miss his new book Poems and Images. See https://lasaviapublishing.com/poems-images/

Lindsay Rabbitt was born in Invercargill, Aotearoa New Zealand’s southernmost city, in 1950, and raised under the big skies of Central Otago, home district of his mother’s maternal people.

As a young man he trained as a hand and machine typographer and worked for newspapers and commercial printing houses. In the 1980s he purchased a Wellington typesetting and graphic design business. Renaming it Voice Press, he published poetry and short fiction. He reinvented himself as a journalist in the 1990s, working as a reporter/sub-editor for the Kapiti Observer, later writing (freelance) artist profiles, radio and book reviews for the NZ Listener. He occasionally writes book reviews for Landfall Review Online. He has lived on the Kapiti Coast for almost three decades and performs his poems with the song and spoken word troupe Waiata & the Word.

24/06/2024

'The DOJ’s lawyer collected data on 58,000 titles published in a year and discovered that 90 percent of them sold fewer than 2,000 copies and 50 percent sold less than a dozen copies.'

Many of us writers involved with small or boutique publishers may think, when thinking about the Big Five publishers, that the grass is greener on that side of the street. I have certainly had these feelings from time to time, but have never been totally convinced. Now this document, the result of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into a proposed merger between Penguin and Simon & Schuster, which would've turned the Big Five into a Big Four gives us a startlingly honest picture of what is really happening.

That 50% of all books they publish sell less than 12 copies was a figure that blew me away. By that count, Lasavia writers are doing pretty darn well!

It seems that a small handful of celebrity and franchise writers carry these big publishers. If your name is Michelle Obama, you'll sell heaps of books even if badly written, and the publisher doesn't need to do any marketing!

Have faith in your voice and keep writing!

'The publishing houses may live to see another day, but I don’t think their model is long for this world. Unless you are a celebrity or franchise author, the publishing model won’t provide a whole lot more than a tiny advance and a dozen readers.'

Everything we learned about the publishing industry from Penguin vs. DOJ.

29/05/2024

Our current best seller is this debut novel by Waiheke writer Monika Killeen. This mother/daughter relationship story seems to have hit the spot with readers with strong online and direct sales. Congratulations Monika.

Lasavia Publishing (99% Press, TP Press & Beansprout Press) is dedicated to the publication & distri

16/04/2024

Our latest publication. Quite simply the best NZ book I've ever read on World War 2. Something more than a novel, it's a creative reconstruction of the era by a master of the language. We're very proud to have this on our lists.

Lasavia Publishing (99% Press, TP Press & Beansprout Press) is dedicated to the publication & distri

31/01/2024

Portrait of a Lasavia Writer: Monika Killeen.
Monika has published her first novel with us, An Inflammable Act of Kindness and it's making quite a spash with strong sales.

She was born in 1976 in a small town in Slovakia. She left in 1995 to see the world beyond her country’s newly opened borders, enticing like the forbidden room.

Discovering life as a young woman in London, she learned English while working as an au-pair. After twenty-six years in the UK and careers in law and psychotherapy, she migrated once again. She now lives on Waiheke Island off the north coast of New Zealand, with her husband, two children, and Rosie, the best dog in the world.

n her debut novel, Monika Killeen explores the mother-daughter relationship with clarity, honesty and wit. Spanning four generations of daughters, their lives shaped by the turmoil of twentieth century Eastern Europe, An Inflammable Act of Kindness follows Meli on her journey from the shadows of her small town to the glaring blaze of the Dream City. From a little girl with some uneasy questions for her grandma, to a young woman at boarding school, she bides her time before making an escape. The narrative weaves through times and places, piecing together the traumas, decisions and conflicts that make Meli who she is, fearlessly laying bare her inner world.

https://lasaviapublishing.com/an-inflammable-act-of-kindness/

23/01/2024

Portrait of a Lasavia Writer: Murray Edmond.
Murray Edmond displays his literary powers over several fields, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, dramaturgy, editing, teaching. Murray Edmond's work has had significant impact on NZ/Aotearoa arts. He writes with an acute eye for social contexts and character.

His first book with us Aucklanders is forged with craft and compassion. Lisa Samuels comments:
'Aucklanders is utterly human, showing the power of the city’s hidden histories and suppressed alternatives in lives that glow and break with absurdity and longing […] This is a wonderful book of human comedies that show how much hurt can hurtle through nervy humour. The language crackles with love and scorn, revelation and delusion and fate. Aucklanders is a tremendous collection of tales.'

https://lasaviapublishing.com/murray-edmond/

23/01/2024

I have finally come to the end of my huge study of Bob Dylan's Never Ending Tour, hosted by Untold Dylan, 144 articles tracing Dylan's performances from 1987 – 2019. About two hundred and twenty thousand words with around 1500 Mp3 uploads, it took me four years to write and was a journey of discovery, covering the scope and nature of Dylan's musical odyssey.
We will be putting it out in book form, referencing the Mp3s on the Untold Dylan website. At first I thought the book was superfluous, but there's a growing understanding that people read longer pieces more comfortably on the page, and learn better than way too. Besides, I'm the generation that feels that words somehow have more solidity on the page than floating around in cyberspace, fb notwithstanding! The cloud's a bit too cloudy for me.
The link is for the last article of the series, and I cover three amazing versions of 'It's Not Dark Yet,' from 2019, when Dylan was seventy-eight. These three performances are an absolute blast, and were a great way to end the series.

The end of the Never Ending Tour: 2019 part 4: Virgil’s farewell: It’s not dark yet January 22, 2024 Tony Attwood Uncategorized This is Episode 144 of the Never Ending Tour series by Mike Johnson (Kiwipoet). An index to the full series appears here. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, we have the Roman ...

28/11/2023

I've had a great response at the Waiheke Market with this book of poetry from Katie Glasgow-Palmer. Daniela's brilliant cover has people picking the book up. Sharp observations on arrivals and departures.

Debut poet, Glasgow-Palmer, evokes those feelings that all of us who have spent time as a New Zealand expat will relate to: a funeral over zoom, a conversation on the plane, struggles with foreign cultures and languages, and that odd mix of pride and rejection that characterises our relationship with home.

https://lasaviapublishing.com/the-little-guide-to-leaving/

28/11/2023

We are happy to announce a new chidren's book Fifi's Fantastical Tales by Waiheke Island writer Vyvean Anthea Oakley. A wonderful Xmas gift for a child.

Fifi is a magical child. She talks to animals. A Bengal cat, three alpacas and two donkeys keep her company, and Fifi does her best to keep them out of trouble.

Fifi’s Fantastical Tales builds a gentle yet intriguing magical world of talking farm animals, ornamental creatures that come come to life, and cars that run on fairy dust. But the stories also have much to teach parents and children alike. Did you know that a baby alpaca is called a cria, that alpacas love to swim, and that their spit is green, or that a donkey’s bite is stronger than a crocodile’s?

Fifi’s Fantastical Tales by Vyvean Anthea OakleyCharming, Entertaining EducationalFifi is a magical child. She talks to animals. A Bengal cat, three alpacas and two donkeys keep her company, …

11/11/2023

A Lasavia best seller.

Let's face it, poetry is not exactly a popular enthusiasm, but it does have a dedicated following, and I find a lot of young people are interested in it. Still, it often sits neglected on my Waiheke Market stall.
One of my best selling books of all, however, and certainly the best selling poetry book, is the little Two Lines and a Garden. I have two customers who buy four or five at at a time for gifts.
I've tried to account for this popularity. Maybe it's simplicity of the black and white design. The simplicity of the three-line haiku style poems. Maybe it's Leila's engaging line drawings. Maybe it's the size – see photo. It literarily fits in the palm of a hand. Maybe it's the reasonable price at $20. Or a combination of all of these things.
They make a great gift for a literary minded friend.
If you want a signed copy for $20 plus postage, e-mail me at [email protected] and I'll send you my account number. I'll be posting them off in the week beginning 20th Nov.
https://lasaviapublishing.com/two-lines-and-a-garden/

01/11/2023

Portrait of a Lasavia Writer: Mariah Hamang.

Mariah K. Hamang is a q***r American poet, pagan, leftist, and mental health advocate currently residing in Chicago, IL. They received their B.A. in English from Indiana University Northwest (2012) and M.A. in Linguistics from the University of Colorado (2014). Their work has been published in Otoliths, BlazeVOX, Catahoula, and other journals. Their two pampered cats are named Nazlım and Tuğba, in honor of Turkey’s notorious street cats and all the dear memories there.

Their book with us is called Fourteen Slopes:
In this book of beautiful, visceral verse and prose poetry, Hamang explores questions of pain, desire, and the space between us. Inspired by their time as an expat in Istanbul, the work is set to the backdrop of that seething metropolis. Hamang’s work, written to be read in a packed bar, is evocative, sensual, and leaves you wanting more.
https://lasaviapublishing.com/fourteen-slopes/

26/10/2023

23/10/2023

Our latest publication is Murray Edmond's Aucklanders, a book of finely crafted short stories about some of the inhabitants of New Zealand's most diverse city.

'Aucklanders is utterly human, showing the power of the city’s hidden histories and suppressed alternatives in lives that glow and break with absurdity and longing […] This is a wonderful book of human comedies that show how much hurt can hurtle through nervy humour. The language crackles with love and scorn, revelation and delusion and fate. Aucklanders is a tremendous collection of tales.'
Lisa Samuels

'They, the stories and their characters, also tell tales, very good ones, but their remarkable character comes from a kind of social energy, a vivacity and diversity that has the cantankerous life-hum of the many-voiced, multi-cultured city they inhabit and celebrate.'
Ian Wedde

https://lasaviapublishing.com/aucklanders/

27/08/2023

Our latest publication. I have to take off my hat to Maree for her entrepreneurship and energy. She has done several interviews and had the book converted to an audio book. I'm happy to say it's going well.
Buy it at: https://lasaviapublishing.com/the-no-bullsh*t-guide-to-getting-sober-2/
'To the point and easy to read, MacLean draws on the evidence from science, and her own experience conquering the booze to write a book that will help you tackle your conveyor belt of excuses once and for all.' James Mahoney, sub-editor Gulf News.

04/07/2023

We Are publishing some of our title now as ebooks

1526: A Historical Mystery is one of the first

“This isn’t just a ‘bodice-ripper’ of a historical-fantasy-detective novel, it’s a codpiece crusher and vestment splatterer. Set in the fictional town of Eisenberg, east-central Europe, in the early 16th century, the story opens on the puzzle of an unsolved murder, a death which is soon overtaken by many more; like a stone thrown into a pool of blood. The author does a great job of making us care about his cast of Bruegelesque grotesques – lovers, villains and fools – from a randy bishop to warrior nuns, witches, bloodthirsty Tartars and Polygamous Anabaptists. Despite a tumbling pace and unpredictable plot, the central thread, though tangled is never lost. The battlefield action in particular is quite brilliantly imagined. Gory, gripping and not for the fainthearted.”

1526: A Historical Mystery (English Edition) eBook : Sylva, Rowan: Amazon.de: Kindle-Shop

04/07/2023

https://boosted.org.nz/projects/flying-solo

Dear lovers of New Zealand Literature we are very proud to the be the potential publishers of this amazing project! This is a really exciting project with so many new and really very interesting submissions on the subject of single parenting. We’ve raised nearly half of our funding target! But we still have some way to go. Please help us to this project a reality by pledging a little.

FLYING SOLO - CREATIVE WRITING ON SOLO PARENTING IN AOTEAROA We need YOU to help us PAY our contributors for CONTENT