So, I seem to have published a bestselling book...

It's been a pretty cool week. After the book launches of the week before, we went away last weekend, and spent the weekend reading, writing, rebalancing, wandering around, watching DVDs and spending as much time as possible sitting in front of the open fire.

And then this week, on Thursday, I found out the The Baker's Thumbprint (the book I've just published) was number 7 on the NZ fiction bestseller list! Look here if you need proof (I certainly did!): http://www.seraphpress.co.nz/1/post/2013/05/the-bakers-thumbprint-debuts-at-no7-on-nz-fiction-bestseller-list.html.

I'm really blown away and excited. And kind of shocked. I know it's due to having the books turn up at bookshops the same week we had two launches (one in Auckland and one in Wellington), and it's also the first time I've sold all the launch books through bookshops, rather than directly, but it's also due to Paula Green, who has a very strong personal following. But I think it also is signalling that Seraph Press is getting to a new level of respect, which makes me very happy.

I doubt that the book will keep up quite that high level of sales, but Paula is going to be interviewed on Arts on Sunday on the radio tomorrow (http://www.seraphpress.co.nz/1/post/2013/05/paula-green-on-arts-on-sunday.html), so hopefully that will spark more interest.

And now I need to get the next book (The Rope Walk, by Maria McMillan) finished!

Tuesday Poem: 'Thursday' by Paula Green

Thursday
(for Jenny Bornholdt)

If you look beneath the floorboards
of this poem you might find
endless days of rain and wind
on the Waitākere Ranges.

Between the walls you might see
a garden that needs spring plants.

You might stumble upon
the story of a mathematician
who knits patches for a quilt because she
can never recall what she saw
the month before

or the story of a philosopher
who walks in circles
to seek the meaning of life
or lost things or why the heart
and not the lungs
registers the pulse of love.

My house waits
with its creaking walls
and everything
is the same and then
different.

The wind crackles.
The bouillabaisse needs stirring.
Perhaps it needs more salt.


Paula Green

I can't believe it's launch week already. On Saturday we've got the Auckland launch of The Baker's Thumbprint, and then next week it's the Wellington launch.

'Thursday' is the first poem in the book, and as soon as I read this in the manuscript I was pretty sure this was a book I wanted to publish. It's just gorgeous. My favourite lines are 'why the heart / and not the lungs /
registers the pulse of love', but there are so many more to love. It's a quiet, contemplative beginning to playful and frequently energetic book, but it has several of the themes that continue through the whole - secrets waiting to be discovered, philosophy, place, home and lunch - there's always lots of good food in a Paula Green book!

As ever, more Tuesday Poems await over at the hub blog: http://tuesdaypoem.blogspot.co.nz/.

Launching The Baker's Thumbprint, Auckland and Wellington

If I haven't invited you already, then consider yourself invited!

We're launching Paula Green's new collection The Baker's Thumbprint (which I am/Seraph Press is publishing) in both Auckland and Wellington on the 18th and 21st of May. Come along to one or other, or both! The launch invitations are below, and the Facebook events are here for Auckland: http://www.facebook.com/events/468081233260334/ or here for Wellington: http://www.facebook.com/events/163956803780493/.