ABOUT EM PRESS
em PRESS Publishing specialises in Australian landscapes and their historical and cultural contexts. em PRESS is particularly interested in fusing Indigenous, European settler and nature-based readings of the landscape to provide a truer view of our country.
Australia’s landscapes are really nothing like the Mediterranean or English countryside to which so many aspire. If Captain Cook had been Australian and discovered England would he have introduced kangaroos and emus as livestock? For too long, the majority of Australians have lived as aliens in their own land. “It might be time to redirect our dreams,” championed the late eminent environmental scientist George Seddon. “We are here and not somewhere else.”
em PRESS seeks to reveal a sense of a place, connecting people to their country. em is one of the smallest printer’s measures.
Gib Wettenhall, the principal of em PRESS Publishing, is an award-winning author, journalist and editor. He has, in particular, written a series of books on cultural landscapes and Indigenous history – The People of Budj Bim with the Gunditjmara people of south-west Victoria; The People of Gariwerd: the Grampians’ Aboriginal history, which has gone through three print runs; and William Barak: Bridge builder of the Kulin. With photographer Alison Pouliot and designer Max Marks, he published in 2006 a high quality landscape photography book on the Grampians, Gariwerd: Reflecting on the Grampians. He researched and wrote the interpretive signage at the Brambuk National Park and Cultural Centre in Halls Gap. And he is writing the content for interpretive signage since the Budj Bim landscape won World Heritage listing in 2019.
Working with Ballarat Region Treegrowers, Gib in 2009 edited and published a book Recreating the Country on ways to add habitat to make ‘wildlife friendly properties’ for native fauna and flora in bare, rural landscapes – visit www.afg.asn.au In 2010, Ballarat Region Treegrowers established a 15 hectare biorich demonstration forest at Lal Lal based on the land restoration principles set out in Recreating the Country – visit www.biorichplantations.com He was for 14 years the Editor of the national quarterly, Australian Forest Grower magazine.
In 2013, em PRESS published a nature journal titled Daylesford Nature Diary by ornithologist Tanya Loos that reintroduces the Indigenous concept of six seasons for Victoria's foothill forests. That year, Gib and his wife Gayl visited north-east Arnhem Land, a bastion of Indigenous culture, where the Yolngu people's language and connection to country remains strong and dynamic. As a result of that trip, an Indigenous land management group, the Yirralka Rangers, commissioned Gib to write and produce a booklet explaining how they go about protecting their land over an area the size of Wales. The second in the series examined the link between the rangers' environmental knowledge and being on country, and was published in April 2016. A third booklet on sea country is planned.
As the publications manager of the Great Dividing Trail Association (GDTA), Gib produced their four map brochures and interpretive signage – visit www.gdt.org.au In 2012, he wrote and produced an award winning walking guide for the GDTA, the Goldfields Track walking guide about the 210km long Goldfields Track, which goes from Mt Buninyong to Bendigo. A 2nd revised edition that included mountain bike riders was published in December 2017. In 2015, Gib edited and produced the booklet Federation Walks 2015: 20 day walks around Daylesford in central Victoria.
Production and distribution
em PRESS Publishing follows the whole production chain from research and writing through to commissioning photographers and briefing designers and printers, then organising promotion and distribution.
Distribution of em PRESS publications to bookshops at wholesale price is available on request. Orders of under five books attract postage and handling costs. Melbourne distribution is handled by Rob Oke.
Contact details:
Gib Wettenhall
em PRESS Publishing
133 McPhans Rd
Mollongghip VIC 3352
email: gib@vic.chariot.net.au
mobile: 0419 370 342