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  • IN PRINT
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  • REVIEWS
    • The People of Budj Bim
    • The People of Gariwerd
    • Gariwerd - Reflecting on the Grampians
    • Daylesford Nature Diary
    • Daughter of Two Worlds
    • Central Highlands Walk & Ride Circuits
    • Goldfields Track Walk or Ride Guide
    • My Father's Son & Tomorrow
    • Sustainably Managing Private Native Forests – a guide for Victorian landowners
    • A Fortunate Accident
    • William Barak - Bridge builder of the Kulin
    • Recreating the Country
    • Adding Value to the Farmers' Trees
    • Bureaucracy Blues & Alpha Jerk
    • Perpetual Calendar
  • ESSAYS
    • Cultural burning
    • Raising A Green Wood Shed
    • Reimagining and reinventing our culture
    • Aboriginal standing stones
    • The slaughter of trees
  • em PRESS BLOG
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7/6/2022 0 Comments

Second Edition of People of Budj Bim includes their World Heritage  listing

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In 2019, the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage list – the first Indigenous-led nomination from Australia. Out now, the Second Edition of The People of Budj Bim takes up the story since 2010.
The new edition describes the painstaking nomination process over a 17 year period, culminating in the inscribing ceremony for the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape at the 43rd World Heritage Congress session in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Another added chapter looks at how the Gunditjmara have ably stepped up in healing Country, culture and the people themselves.
It was great to work once again with designer Max Marks; and I'd like to acknowledge the calm and consistent guidance offered by Denis Rose at the Gunditjmara end.
Published by em PRESS in late June 2022.
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8/3/2022 0 Comments

Updating the drop slab hut so it's fit for purpose in the 21st century

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Woodsman Lachie Park has moved on to build a tiny one room hut out of green wood from locally sourced timbers and materials. It's in a clearing in the 15ha biorich plantation Lal Lal, SW Victoria, managed by Ballarat Region Treegrowers (BRT). Lachie's updated the traditional Aussie invention of the drop slab hut, so it not only celebrates localism, but is another beautiful example of pegging timbers the old, slow way.
In the process of going local and going slow, he reduced carbon emissions. Where combined with avoiding processed products, going local and slow leads to going carbon low. There's a slogan in there.

​Visit BRT's biorich plantation website for an essay on the rationale behind building the drop slab hut – see also the earlier essay on this website called Raising A Green Wood Shed.

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16/7/2021 0 Comments

Circuit guide for walks and bike rides in the Daylesford region

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Published by em PRESS, each of the 20 walks and 10 bike rides in the Central Victorian Highlands Walk and Ride Circuits guide is supported by full colour, large scale contour maps alongside detailed accompanying track notes. It’s sturdy, wiro bound and well-designed – features that replicate the style of the award-winning Goldfields Track guide. Graded from easy to hard, the circuits are scattered around all points of the compass within a 25km radius from Daylesford.
 
A team of five Great Dividing Trail Association (GDTA) members with vast collective experience specifically devised the walk and ride circuits, all of which are short enough to complete in around four hours. And because all of the routes presented are circuits, there’s no fiddling around with car shuttles.

Visit the GDTA's online SHOP to purchase for $24.99

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The circuits guide team (L to R): Tim Bach, Ken Dowling, Ed Butler, Mike Gustus, Gib Wettenhall and Bill Casey.
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21/1/2019 0 Comments

Reprint of The People of Gariwerd in association with the Brambuk mob

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This 3rd reprint of  The People of Gariwerd was undertaken in association with the Brambuk National Park & Cultural Centre. Previous print runs were sponsored by Aboriginal Affairs Victoria.
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Twenty years on, this is still the only comprehensive history of the Grampians ranges that gives the Aboriginal side of the story. It acknowledges that the ranges were fully occupied for tens of thousands of years by the Indigenous  Djab wurrung and the Jardwadjali peoples.

​Illustrated throughout, it is ideal for students and visitors  to the ranges.


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14/9/2018 0 Comments

Alison Pouliot strikes again

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You can almost smell the damp, dark forest which fungi inhabit in the new book by nature photographer, now author, Alison  Pouli0t.
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As a photographer Alison Pouliot brought over 100 evocative images to the large format fotog book Gariwerd:Reflecting on the Grampians, published by em PRESS. 
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I ​also commissioned her to take pix of features along the Goldfields Track,  many of which adorn  both editions of the the track's guidebooks. 

Her new informative and entertaining ‘autoethnographic’ tour of the fungal world features, as you would expect, many striking photos. She's no slouch at writing either. 
I just went to flick through the book, and before I knew it, was immersed in the lexicon of fungi and its disappointing roots in English. 

The Allure of Fungi is published by CSIRO Publishing.


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13/9/2018 0 Comments

Daddy Who? Biography of a real rock and roll band by Craig Horne

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Musician and former em PRESS author Craig Horner is gathering some impressive reviews for his biography of the rise and fall of one of Australia's favourite rock and roll bands, Daddy Cool.

A review by music critic Ian McFarlane raves:
"There are many fabulous tales to be told in Australian rock’n’roll and the story of Daddy Cool must surely rate as one of the most entertaining. This is the kind of book that I had hoped to read one day... and now musician and author Craig Horne has delivered the goods.

"Horne has the musician’s sense for the minutiae of life on the road and the author’s flair for telling a good story. He also provides great insight into the music of the 1960s and 1970s which gave rise to a band such as Daddy Cool, by placing it within the political milieu of the day, a time of enormous social change and cultural revolution.


"There are many great passages throughout. When Wilson wrote the prototype ‘Eagle Rock’, coming up with the finger picking, country blues guitar lick in A that he was sure he’d stolen subliminally from somewhere, he asked anyone who would listen, “have you heard this before?”. He finally realised he’d come up with something unique when no-one could quite pinpoint the connection.
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"He took the title ‘Eagle Rock’ from a picture he’d seen in a newspaper article; it showed African Americans dancing in a Juke Joint during the 1930s and the caption said they were “Doing the eagle rock and cutting the pigeon wing”.

Craig wrote two early novels about a young public servant who wants to become a rock star. He does, and the consequences are dire! While there's a certain amount of semi-autobiographical wish-fulfilment in the pair of novels, they're essentially black comedies. Both were published by em PRESS and you can purchase Bureaucracy Blues and its sequel Alpha Jerk by visiting the SHOP ONLINE

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PictureCraig playing with Gary Young, on the drums, at the launch of Daddy Who? at the Arts Centre.
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20/6/2018 0 Comments

The People of Budj Bim back in print

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The People Budj Bim has been reprinted with minor changes. It is hoped a revised edition will come out next year to coincide with the Budj Bim landscape gaining World Heritage listing as Australia's first cultural landscape.

Copies of the book are also on sale via the Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation in Heywood.

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9/4/2018 0 Comments

Out of print ≥ The People of Budj Bim

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The high head of the creator being Budj Bim above Lake Surprise.
Last copies of The People of Budj Bim in stock were sold by em PRESS in early April 2018. Some stock is still held by the Melbourne Museum  bookshop and at Windamara in Heywood.

A decision on World Heritage listing of the Budj Bim landscape is expected next year. So far the application has cleared every hurdle.
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31/12/2017 0 Comments

2nd edition brings bike riders on board

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Twenty years on from the Goldfields Track's humble beginnings, the 2nd edition of the Goldfields Track guidebook not only brings the colourful history of the region together, but also, for the first time, brings together mountain bike riders and walkers. No longer simply a walking guide, it’s now the Goldfields Track Walk or Ride Guide, providing comprehensive coverage of the longest shared use track in Victoria.
 
The 1st walking guide edition won a community history award for its in-depth coverage of cultural heritage and reading the landscape. Wiro bound, it’s proven tough enough for on-track usage.
 
“This new edition stands on its shoulders and raises the bar to new heights,” says Peter Skilbeck, Chair of Goldfields Track Inc (GTI). “It has totally revised maps and track notes, and new essays from local experts.

The publishers have deliberately fostered ‘a sense of place’ by sourcing the guide’s author, designer, essayists, cartographers and photographers from the goldfields region. Land managers from Parks Victoria to DELWP and local government have embraced the track.
 
“What makes the Goldfields Track truly unique is its cultural heritage, diverse natural beauty from mountain tops to golden plains, and its easy accessibility from Melbourne and regional towns,” comments Peter Skilbeck.

Published by Em PRESS for the GTI & the Great Dividing Trail Association Inc
Gib Wettenhall (author)
Goldfields Track: Walk or Ride Guide
210km from Mt Buninyong to Bendigo, central Victoria
172 pages, fully illustrated             35 maps
RRP $29.99         
ISBN 9780975777886 (pbk.)

Online orders: www.gdt.org.au au or www.goldfieldstrack.com.au
On sale at regional Visitor Centres (Creswick, Daylesford, Castlemaine and Bendigo) and selected bookshops and retail outlets – see the websites


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10/6/2017 0 Comments

Budj Bim landscape nominated for World Heritage listing

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In January,  the Prime Minister and Premier of Victoria came together on the banks of Lake Condah to announce that the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape was being officially nominated for recognition by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.

"It is the first area in Australia exclusively listed for its Aboriginal culture and heritage," said PM Malcolm Turnbull. "It is absolutely an appropriate recognition of its significance and its values." 
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    Author

    Writer and em PRESS publisher Gib Wettenhall lives among Mollongghip's volcanic hills at the far eastern end of the Divide between Ballarat and Daylesford.

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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.