Publishing Wednesday 3 April 2013RRP$4.99 • ISBN 9781927131770 (EPUB), ISBN 9781927131787 (KINDLE)

Available direct from www.bwb.co.nz and from major retailers including Amazon, Kobo and eBooks.com

Also available as a bundle with other BWB Texts from the BWB website

M e d i a R e l e a s e

P O Box 12474, Wellington 6144 • Phone: 04 473 8128

Email: info@bwb.co.nz • www.bwb.co.nz

Creeks and KitchensA Childhood Memoir

Maurice Gee

My special nouns are ‘creek’ and ‘kitchen’. Two very ordinary words but for me they are the most suggestive in the language and at certain times, when I’m properly receptive, they can start me on all sorts of journeys. Creek and kitchen are the poles that I moved between for most of my childhood.

Widely regarded as one of New Zealand’s greatest fiction writers, Maurice Gee has written virtually no non-fiction. The exceptions are the two exquisite childhood reminiscences combined here into a memoir in this BWB Text.

In this little known work, Gee describes in fascinating detail his boyhood and family life in West Auckland and offers illuminating insights into some of the creative forces which have driven some of his fiction: the creek with its dangers – where, he writes, he glimpsed ‘sex and death’ – the kitchen with his mother preparing dinner in the gathering dark, and his elderly uncle, later the model for the magnificent Plumb.

BWB Texts offer a new form of reading for New Zealanders. Commissioned as short digital-only works, BWB Texts unlock diverse stories, insights and analysis from the best of our past, present and future New Zealand writing.

About the authorMaurice Gee is widely regarded as one of New Zealand’s greatest authors, for both adults and children. He has received numerous awards, nominations and grants for his adult fiction, including the Wattie Award and the Montana Award, and also for his young adult and children’s books. In 2004 he received a Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement. His adult novels include the Plumb trilogy, Going West, Prowlers, Live Bodies and Blindsight.

For more information or a review copy, contact publicist Angela Radford

Phone: 09 579 7351 • Mobile: 027 540 1104

Email: angelaradford@xtra.co.nz

Tom Rennie is available for discussion of BWB Texts.

Review copies of Creeks and Kitchens: A Childhood Memoir are available.

For interviews or review copies, please contact Angela Radford: angelaradford@xtra.co.nz, 027 540 1104

What are BWB Texts?A BWB Text is a short, digital-only piece of high-quality New Zealand writing, produced swiftly and distributed globally online. Read on smart phones and e-readers, tablets and desktop computers, BWB Texts connect an exploding online readership to some of New Zealand’s best authors, reading and ideas.

BWB Texts draw on the publishing expertise of Bridget Williams Books to bring readers an exciting mix of New Zealand reading: cutting edge commentary sits alongside reflective narrative, debate alongside history, articles follow memoir, and information precedes stories.

Launching with Paul Callaghan: Luminous Moments, the first set of BWB Texts now includes: Maurice Gee’s Creeks & Kitchens: A Childhood Memoir, Rebecca Macfie’s Report from Christchurch (in association with the New Zealand Listener), and Kathleen Jones’s ‘I think ... I am going to die.’: Katherine Mansfield at Fontainebleau. More BWB Texts, including Hamish Campbell’s The Zealandia Drowning Hypothesis and Sir Tipene O’Regan’s New Myths and Old Politics, will be released regularly throughout 2013.

Why are BWB Texts important?Debate — new readers, new thinkingBWB Texts provide a new meeting space, connecting our histories, technologies, shifting readers, emerging and established authors, and our shared futures.

Quality — serious writing amidst the online noise The internet is disrupting the quality and nature of our reading. BWB Texts help connect important ideas and a readership confronted with the noise of modern media.

Silence — the challenges facing mediaBWB Texts represent a response to these challenges, one that draws on these technological shifts to nurture great writing, both as BWB Texts and within the wider BWB publishing programme.

Global — immediate and crossing boundariesProduced within weeks and worldwide in distribution, BWB Texts broadcast New Zealand voices and stories across boundaries.

How will BWB Texts work?The BWB Texts programme is inspired by emerging overseas publishing models focused on short form digital-only works, often referred to as ‘e-singles’. Sharing similar characteristics as these offshore initiatives, BWB Texts are short digital-only works, produced quickly to ensure topicality, retailed at low cost, and distributed to the widest range of devices possible. BWB Texts are crafted in-house at BWB using a digital production workflow powered by Infogrid Pacific, with covers from Base Two.

The strength of BWB’s commissioning strategy based on providing excellent research and writing about New Zealand is widely recognised. BWB Texts build from this expertise, using the flexibility of this new approach to provide readers with a broad sweep of topics: New Zealand history; contemporary issues; biography and autobiography; other New Zealand narrative non-fiction (for example, travel writing and science).

BWB Texts are available directly and DRM-free from our website (www.bwb.co.nz), in addition to a wide range of retailers including Amazon, Kobo and eBooks.com. Bundled sets of BWB Texts will also be made available. School, public and tertiary libraries in New Zealand and abroad will be able to purchase copies via distributors ebrary, EBL and Wheelers.

Who is behind BWB Texts?BWB Texts was instigated by publisher Tom Rennie and journalist Max Rashbrooke, in partnership with BWB’s director Bridget Williams. The trio became a quartet with Geoff Walker bringing years of New Zealand publishing experience to the team as commissioning editor alongside Max Rashbrooke. Together, we have fashioned a contemporary vision drawing on many years of strong publishing experience.

AcknowledgementWe would like to acknowledge the funding support of the BWB Publishing Trust (www.bwbpublishingtrust.org.nz) that makes this new digital imprint possible.