New Women's Press

New Women's Press (NWP) was an independent book publisher founded in Auckland, New Zealand in 1982.[1] New Women's Press's mandate was to publish books "by, for, and about women."[1] Wendy Harrex ran New Women's Press for 11 years.[2] Over that time, NWP published over 70[3] titles of non-fiction, fiction and poetry, as well as an annual diary, Herstory, that highlighted groups of New Zealand women. The Haeata Collective of Māori women artists was originally founded to produce a Herstory edition for NWP.[4] NWP also published the first anthology of New Zealand women's fiction, which was edited by Cathie Dunsford.[5]

The Broadsheet feminist magazine and NWP celebrated a joint anniversary (Broadsheet's twentieth and NWP's tenth) on 19 September 1992, with a Suffrage Day event in Auckland, attended by more than 200 women.[3] The event was part of the Listener Women's Book Festival, and was also the launch of Been Around for Quite a While. Speakers included Pat Rosier, Sandra Coney, Wendy Harrex, Stephanie Johnson and Sheridan Keith.[3]

In an article surveying the state of women's publishing in New Zealand, Laurel Bergmann describes New Women's Press as "an important part of the process of legitimation of women fiction writers", particularly due to the New Women's Fiction anthology series that provided opportunities to new writers to publish alongside established voices.[6][7] Janet Wilson has noted that this anthology series "confirmed the development of a new market and readership" for writing by women.[8]

  1. ^ a b Taylor, Renee (October 1982). "Feminists Impress" (PDF). Broadsheet (103): 10–11 – via Auckland University Library.
  2. ^ Smith, Charmian (17 January 2009). "From book lovers to book covers". Otago Daily Times Online News. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  3. ^ a b c "The twentieth birthday of Broadsheet and the tenth of New Women's Press". Broadsheet Magazine. 196: 33. Summer 1992.
  4. ^ "Haeata | NZHistory, New Zealand history online". nzhistory.govt.nz. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  5. ^ "Sex scandals and sexism in the swinging 60s". Newsroom. 9 June 2022. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  6. ^ Bergmann, Laurel (January 1994). "Where to from here?: contemporary New Zealand women's fiction". Hecate. 20 (2): 217–218 – via Informit.
  7. ^ Wilson, Janet (10 July 2019). "Contemporary Women's Writing in New Zealand". Kunapipi. 16 (1). ISSN 0106-5734.
  8. ^ Wilson, Janet (2006). "Anthologies of women's writing". In Robinson, Roger; Wattie, Nelson (eds.). The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-1917-3519-6. OCLC 865265749. Retrieved 24 June 2022.