The Indies: WORD Christchurch

Donna

The Indies brought together publisher Murdoch Stephens from Lawrence & Gibson, and two of his authors, Brannavan Gnanalingam and Thomasin Sleigh, with chair Guy Somerset, erstwhile Books & Culture Editor for the Listener.

— Murdoch (@DoingOurBitNZ) August 30, 2014

The Indies
Thomasin Sleigh, Murdoch Stephens, Brannavan Gnanalingam and Guy Somerset.
The Indies
Thomasin Sleigh, Murdoch Stephens, and Brannavan Gnanalingam.

The team showed how sharp indie can be, and as Guy Somerset observed they looked like an awesome 1960s band.

Lawrence & Gibson deal with all aspects of publishing – even the printing and using the guillotine. As Thomasin observed, you get to experience “a really physical relationship with your cultural product”. Murdoch wants the writers to have a real sense of being in a collective, all the money goes back into books and:

We want to publish writer’s first experimental works.

Cover of Ad LibThomasin’s book Ad Lib is about reality tv. How long is it going to go on for? Until we’ve all been in it? She is interested in the formulaic repetition, the same bit of content being used over and over again.

There was discussion about New Zealand’s small independent presses – Hue and Cry, Giant Sparrow etc. They all have  different styles. Murdoch reckons the hardback book is going to make a storming comeback (I do hope he is right):

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