Local and place-based, em PRESS seeks to connect people to our own landscapes, rather than those elsewhere. To present Indigenous as well as settler perspectives in pursuit of a wider and deeper vision of Australia's 65,000 year old cultural heritage. To find ways we can live more sustainably – as our Indigenous forebears once did, and in some places, still strive to do.

em PRESS has produced regional histories, guidebooks and essays on the interplay between the natural landscape and the cultural heritage of the central Victorian goldfields and the Grampians/Gariwerd ranges. Writer and emPRESS principal, Gib Wettenhall, has collaborated extensively with First Nations people in Victoria and north-east Arnhem Land in order to bring their stories from the margins into the mainstream. 

Two award winning em PRESS books are highlighted IN PRINT.  
A Second Edition of one of these, The People of Budj Bim, has just been published in June 2022 and is available for order now. 

Tanya Loos' six season nature journal and wall calendar for the Wombat Forest is now discounted by 30% – check REVIEW.

Refer to the OUT OF PRINT page for other publications and check out REVIEWS for in-depth appraisal. Books can be purchased by credit card via the SHOP ONLINE or you could visit one of the listed BOOKSHOPS selling em PRESS stock.  

A menu of  ESSAYS by Gib Wettenhall explores overlooked aspects of treegrowing and inconvenient Indigenous issues.
In 2019, the Budj Bim landscape in south-west Victoria gained UNESCO World Heritage listing as Australia's first Indigenous cultural landscape after 17 years of persistent negotiation. Originally written in collaboration with the Gunditjmara in 2010, the award-winning The People of Budj Bim has been revised and updated in 2022 with two new chapters added on the World Heritage listing process and how the Gunditjmara are stepping up to the challenges they face.  The 2nd edition was published in June and is out now. To order, go to the SHOP.
On the way: yet another high quality reprint of Daughter of Two Worlds by Gunditjmara descendant Dawn Lees on gloss paper with improved photo contrast will be in the SHOP soon –  by late July this year. Currently out of print – see REVIEW.
In June 2021, em PRESS published another walks and bike rides guide, this time focusing on short, half day circuits in the Daylesford region. The Central Victorian Highlands Walk and Ride Circuits was produced for the Great Dividing Trail Association and can be bought online in the SHOP for $24.99. You can also read a REVIEW
A recent essay by Gib  puts the case for Indigenous cultural burning to be taken up by landowner's groups as an alternative environmental approach to large scale 'hazard' reduction burning. A short version is featured in the winter 2020 edition of the Victorian Landcare magazine –  click here.
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Others in the series include:- Raising a green wood shed  pleas for a return to lost crafts and localism; the enigma of Aboriginal standing stones is explored along with their appropriation by a bunch of Celts; A brief history of the slaughter of trees demonstrates how we don't seem to learn our environmental lessons; and Reimagining and reinventing our culture delves into aspects of animism and what it might have to teach us.
A 3rd reprint of  The People of Gariwerd is now available at the Brambuk National Park shop in Halls Gap as well as via online – purchase here  Still the only accessible Indigenous history of the Gariwerd/ Grampians ranges, the reprint was undertaken in association with the Brambuk National Park & Cultural Centre. Illustrated throughout, it is ideal for students and visitors  to the ranges.
We've found another box of My Father's Son, Ric Throssel's award-winning autobiography of his struggles to follow in his famous parents' footsteps and clear his name as a spy. His poet and novelist daughter Karen recently entwined poetry and prose to explore three generations of her family and Ric's battle with ASIO in The Crime of Not Knowing Your Crime.
Recently deceased, John Landy AC, the running legend and former Governor of Victoria, provided the Foreword for em PRESS's large format, high quality hardback Gariwerd: Reflecting on the Grampians. Still relevant, still beautiful, the book has  100 evocative full page images of the Gariwerd/Grampians ranges by Alison Pouliot (now of fungi fame) and five challenging essays by Gib Wettenhall – still available for purchase in the SHOP
Author and musician Craig Horne has a new book in the works on the explorer and 19th century anthropologist Alfred Howitt. He's moving on from his trilogy of the Melbourne music scene. Em PRESS published an early pair of novels by Craig on the rise and fall of a rock star – Bureaucracy Blues and Alpha Jerk.  They're  still available to buy for a song in the SHOP