IN PRINT
The People of Budj Bim – the Gunditjmara history of their World Heritage listed cultural landscape
REPRINTED 2018
Written in collaboration with the Gunditjmara people of south-west Victoria, this history brings to life the amazing story about their traditional 7,0000 year old eel aquaculture systems and stone house settlements, along with the long Eumeralla War they fought to prevent dispossession.
The People of Budj Bim has received glowing reviews. Fiona Capp in The Age cited the book as "clearly written, enlightening... an excellent teaching tool (and ) a must-read for anyone who wants the full picture on the history of the Western District."
Buy now for $25 only (plus p&h) via the Shop Online menu or Contact Us for bulk orders. For more info visit Reviews or for media reviews and further reading, go to The People of Budj Bim website.
OVERALL WINNER 2011
at the Victorian Community History Awards
for The People of Budj Bim
Presented by the Royal Historical Society & the Public Record Office of Victoria, the judges' citation for the award reads:
"This wonderful exposition about the Gunditjmara people and their country... is well-researched, clearly presented and shows a profound knowledge and understanding of the natural cultural and historical elements that made the landscape and its people in their many manifestations through to present times.
"This publication is a superb community history."
Gunditjmara elder Denise Lovett with Gib Wettenhall at the awards ceremony in Queens Hall, Parliament House on 20 October.
The People of Gariwerd – reprinted in association with the traditional owners
With over 200 rock art sites, the Grampians/Gariwerd National Park contains the most culturally significant Aboriginal sites in Victoria, and is one of the state’s premier tourist destinations. A precursor to The People of Budj Bim and similar in style, The People of Gariwerd gives the Aboriginal side of the story for these ranges.
REPRINTED in January 2019
- The booklet is lavishly illustrated and aimed at visitors to the Grampians. Suitable for schools. In its 3rd print run, The People of Gariwerd tells for the first time how Aboriginal people have maintained an intense and unbroken relationship with the peaks and plains of the Gariwerd for tens of thousands of years.
REPRINTED in January 2019
Reprint of Daughter of Two Worlds by Dawn Lees
A small digital print run in August 2018 has improved the quality of the many images in this extraordinary family history.
Written by Gunditjmara descendant Dawn Lee, Daughter of Two Worlds tells the remarkable story of her family from first contact to her great grandfather's association with John Batman, the founder of Melbourne, and his children's incarceration in the Lake Condah Mission. The book was the product of 15 years research.
“Sometimes hauntingly vivid, [the book] provides a rare perspective on the triumphs and tragedies of a family torn between two different cultures. Of particular interest are the delightful photographs, many of which are from Lee's private collection.”
– Pick of the Week, The Age review by Cameron Woodhead.
Click REVIEW and order via SHOP ONLINE
A small digital print run in August 2018 has improved the quality of the many images in this extraordinary family history.
Written by Gunditjmara descendant Dawn Lee, Daughter of Two Worlds tells the remarkable story of her family from first contact to her great grandfather's association with John Batman, the founder of Melbourne, and his children's incarceration in the Lake Condah Mission. The book was the product of 15 years research.
“Sometimes hauntingly vivid, [the book] provides a rare perspective on the triumphs and tragedies of a family torn between two different cultures. Of particular interest are the delightful photographs, many of which are from Lee's private collection.”
– Pick of the Week, The Age review by Cameron Woodhead.
Click REVIEW and order via SHOP ONLINE
Wombat Forest six season calendar and nature journal
The first Australians understood that this continent has more than four seasons.
Acutely observed, the Daylesford Nature Diary reintroduces the six seasons for Victoria’s southern foothill forests in all their splendour. It includes a full colour, beautifully illustrated wheel calendar of wall poster size as a reference and guide.
A Daylesford naturalist and magazine columnist, author Tanya Loos lovingly illuminates the world within and around a Wombat Forest bush block – from that mysterious bonking at the bottom of the garden to why there are suddenly so many green parrots in late summer. Part What Bird Is That?, part Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, the 36 tales of nature contained in the Daylesford Nature Diary are insightful in the knowledge they impart, while whimsical in tone.
Starting with early spring and heading round to winter, Tanya provides a series of sketches of the birds, plants and animals putting in an appearance each season. Not simply the rare and endangered, but those you might commonly expect to catch sight of from the back door.
“The remarkable Tanya Loos has identified key indicator species for seasonal changes and described them in delightful prose and engaging photographs. Who can resist the appeal of the puggle, an early spring baby echidna indicator?”
Alan Reid, OAM, environmental educator and author of Banksias & Bilbies.
Purchase via SHOP ONLINE at 30% discount from retail price.
Acutely observed, the Daylesford Nature Diary reintroduces the six seasons for Victoria’s southern foothill forests in all their splendour. It includes a full colour, beautifully illustrated wheel calendar of wall poster size as a reference and guide.
A Daylesford naturalist and magazine columnist, author Tanya Loos lovingly illuminates the world within and around a Wombat Forest bush block – from that mysterious bonking at the bottom of the garden to why there are suddenly so many green parrots in late summer. Part What Bird Is That?, part Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, the 36 tales of nature contained in the Daylesford Nature Diary are insightful in the knowledge they impart, while whimsical in tone.
Starting with early spring and heading round to winter, Tanya provides a series of sketches of the birds, plants and animals putting in an appearance each season. Not simply the rare and endangered, but those you might commonly expect to catch sight of from the back door.
“The remarkable Tanya Loos has identified key indicator species for seasonal changes and described them in delightful prose and engaging photographs. Who can resist the appeal of the puggle, an early spring baby echidna indicator?”
Alan Reid, OAM, environmental educator and author of Banksias & Bilbies.
Purchase via SHOP ONLINE at 30% discount from retail price.
Recreating the Country by Stephen Murphy
A practical guide to landscape restoration, Recreating the Country (2009) sets out the design principles for adding habitat and creating more ‘wildlife-friendly’ properties, while at the same time integrating with traditional agricultural enterprises.
Commissioned by Ballarat Region Treegrowers, the guide was written by Landcare nurseryman and ecologist, Stephen Murphy. Well-known author and botanist Leon Costermans described it as “interesting and very informative.” Edited and produced by em PRESS Publishing for Australian Forest Growers.
Available from em PRESS for $25 (inc p&h) – via SHOP ONLINE.
Since 2010, Ballarat Region Treegrowers (BRT) have planted a 15 ha model 'biorich plantation' project on a mining buffer site near Lal Lal Falls based on the principles in the book – visit the biorich plantation website.
Stephen now has a blog called Recreating the Country
Gariwerd: Reflecting on the Grampians
with superb landscape photography by Alison Pouliot
Gariwerd: Reflecting on the Grampians is a high quality, large format book of 95 lyrical photographic images and five challenging essays that pays homage to this landscape like no other on this most unique of continents. With a Foreword by former Governor of Victoria and Olympic runner, John Landy.
The photographs form a unique record of the Grampians ranges as they were taken just prior to the first big bushfire that took out half the Grampians ranges in the summer of 2007. There is still no other high quality landscape photography book of the Grampians that compares.
Reduced by 40% in price to $49.99 for the standard edition; and, for the first time, reduced by 40% to $69.99 for the deluxe limited slip case edition, which is printed on A1 paper and has spot varnish further accentuating the images. Only 500 copies were printed of the Limited edition. Visit Shop Online. Check out more about this book in Reviews
Conserving Aboriginal Places in Coastal Victoria
Commissioned by Aboriginal Affairs Victoria, in the year 2000, this booklet presents approaches and general guidelines for conserving Aboriginal cultural sites and places in coastal Victoria.
Aboriginal cultural sites and places are found from one end of the Victorian coast to the other – more than 4,000 to date. And this number is increasing every year.
Many of the sites are very fragile and exposed to a large number of threats. The very instability of the coastal environment and its high population density places coastal Aboriginal sites at significant risk.
Development does not have to be destructive. Awareness of an area’s cultural heritage values can ensure any development is compatible with the preservation of sites. How planning authorities and local government can ensure this precious cultural heritage is preserved for the future is the subject of this booklet.
ISBN 0 9577131 1 8
A limited number are available in the SHOP for S15 inc p&h
Goldfields Track : Walk or Ride Guide
A revised 2nd edition of the guidebook for both walkers and bike riders was published by em PRESS for the Great Dividing Trail Association in December 2017
For online orders of the new guidebook, visit the website of the Great Dividing Trail Association. For further information, go to Reviews.
NOT ON SALE
VIA EM PRESS
AWARD WINNER 2012
at the Victorian Community History Awards
for the 1st edition as the Goldfields Track walking guide
Gib Wettenhall with Historical Interps Award.
em PRESS won the Historical Interpretation Award for the Goldfields Track walking guide in 2102. The award citation reads:
"This is a very impressive and superbly presented walking guide to the 210km Goldfields Track that extends from Mt Buninyong to Bendigo. Heritage tourists will find it equally valuable to to identify and appreciate the towns and historic sites along the way. A group of knowledgeable authors has combined to describe, photograph and guide users through the series of map spreads into which the walk is divided. What lifts this book above most guides are informative sections on reading the landscape and cultural heritage along the track, and short biographies of the famous district personalities. It is a model for future guides."
Em PRESS principal, Gib Wettenhall acted as the lead writer and producer of the guide. He is the President and publications manager for the Great Dividing Trail Association (GDTA), who acted as the original developers of the Goldfields Track.
Two early novels by Craig Horne, author of the official biography on Daddy Cool, Daddy Who?
A pair of racy novels by musician and author Craig Horne, who's brought out to rave reviews a new biography on Daddy Cool, the band behind the iconic Eagle Rock. Craig is the lead singer and songwriter for the Hornets. Black comedies, his early novels Bureaucracy Blues and its sequel Alpha Jerk, chart the sex and drug-fuelled rise and fall of a public servant who becomes a rock star.
Craig's band regularly features Daddy Cool members Gary Young and, in the past, Wayne Duncan and Ross Hannaford also played with the Hornets, which has been described by The Age as "the best blues band in Melbourne." –
Click Review for more about these two early novels by Craig Horne.
Order via the Shop Online for $24.95 each
A pair of racy novels by musician and author Craig Horne, who's brought out to rave reviews a new biography on Daddy Cool, the band behind the iconic Eagle Rock. Craig is the lead singer and songwriter for the Hornets. Black comedies, his early novels Bureaucracy Blues and its sequel Alpha Jerk, chart the sex and drug-fuelled rise and fall of a public servant who becomes a rock star.
Craig's band regularly features Daddy Cool members Gary Young and, in the past, Wayne Duncan and Ross Hannaford also played with the Hornets, which has been described by The Age as "the best blues band in Melbourne." –
Click Review for more about these two early novels by Craig Horne.
Order via the Shop Online for $24.95 each
Improving community forestry outcomes for a near neighbour
Over the past 10 years, a multi-disciplinary team of over 30 Australian and Indonesian researchers led by Dr Digby Race has linked reafforestation with commercial opportunities for rural communities.
This seems a logical strategy for reversing the worldwide loss of forests. The Indonesian Director-General of Forestry and Environmental Research, Development and Innovation Agency (FOERDIA), Dr Henry Bastaman, said at the launch of Adding Value to the Farmers' Trees in Bogor, Java, that the approach outlined was in accord with the policy direction the government planned to pursue in coming years.
Half of Indonesia’s smallholder farmers of 40 million people live in poverty, suffering from inadequate food and shelter. While most smallholders (i.e. with less than 4ha of land) have timber trees in their yard, these tend to be sold to the village broker on an ad hoc basis in times of great financial need. The project team concluded that the best avenue for ‘adding value’ to the farmers’ trees was by improving their silvicultural knowledge, as well as giving them a better understanding of how commercial markets work.
Training for farmers was based on an adapted version of the Australian Master TreeGrower program. Independent evaluation found that it resulted in a significant improvement in a farmer's knowledge of forestry as well as more active management of their trees
The well-illustrated paperback contains vital, easily accessible information for anyone engaged in community-based commercial forestry (CBCF) extension and policy-making, not only in Indonesia but throughout the developing world.
Major sponsors were the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research and the Australian National University.
Published June 2016
Co-editors Digby Race and Gib Wettenhall
ISBN 978-0-9757778-7-9
Co-editors Digby Race and Gib Wettenhall
ISBN 978-0-9757778-7-9
Sustainably Managing Private Native Forests
A guide for Victorian landowners, Sustainably Managing Private Native Forests was extensively revised by forester Mark Poynter and redesigned and edited via em PRESS Publishing in 2009.
The guide was published on behalf of the Central Victorian Farm plantations Inc, now defunct.
Limited numbers available at $15 (inc p&h) via Shop Online
My Father's Son and Tomorrow
By award-winning author Ric Throssell
An autobiography by Ric Throssell, My Father's Son was runner-up in the National Book Council Banjo Awards for Australian Literature. Author Ric Throssell was the son of celebrated writer and communist Katharine Susannah Prichard and the Victoria Cross winner Hugo Throssell. It tells the story of diplomat Ric Throssell's long battle to break through the suspicion and prejudice that stifled his Foreign Affairs career as the result of being the son of a famous communist. In 1997, em PRESS published a revised edition, which includes a new final chapter that uncovers the information in top secret files held by ASIO on Throssell. A recent book still asserts Throssell was a Russian spy.
Praise for My Father's Son in the Sunday Observer: "A moving, romantic and often exciting account of a life scarred with grief and controversy, and healed with joy, love and vindication."
The final novel by Ric Throssell, Tomorrow begins with the flight of a young Polish Jew, Galina, from Nazi Europe to a new life in Australia. This epic novel is Throssell's take on utopian dreams and their dark side. It traces the war against Japan and the fear and repression of Communism in the 1950s.
In its review, the Canberra Times described Tomorrow as an important novel: "Quite apart from the quality of writing and sense of place which is evoked with considerable clarity, Tomorrow offers an insight into not only the operation of communism in Australia, but the people who were attracted to it as an idea."
You can buy My Father's Son and Tomorrow on the Shop Online. Click here for a Review.