Aotearoa School of Publishing Dispatch – May 2026
Kia ora from the 2026 Whitireia Publishing cohort. We covered a huge range of topics in the past month – our kete are certainly overflowing!
Alex Collins hosted us at Lift Education for an insightful session on educational publishing; we were greeted by an incredible collection of School Journals as we walked in. Karen Workman from Copyright NZ guided us through some of the many nuances of copyright law. Michael Upchurch from Te Papa Press joined us for a fascinating talk on the beautiful, engrossing and wide-ranging pukapuka they produce. Pania Tahau-Hodges (Ngāti Tūwharetoa/Ngāti Tūtemohuta, Tūhoe) from Huia Publishers taught the first of her invaluable sessions on editing English language material with Māori content.
We discussed book cover design with Todd Atticus, fresh from his live cover design event Cover Story at Unity Books, Wellington. Our ākonga also attended Todd’s cover reveal for And How Are Things With You by Mia Farlane, published by Mākaro Press.
E mihi ana ki a koutou.
We have also leapt headfirst into our publishing projects for the year. As we speak, ākonga are working across project management, editorial, production and marketing roles for the following publishers: Āporo Press, The Cuba Press, Kennett Brothers, Playmarket and the Whitireia Journal of Nursing, Health and Social Services. From learning that one of our classmates can correctly identify Kikuyu grass to drawing an entire layout of a house, we’ve been diving deep into the details as we shepherd these stories into te ao mārama.
Written by Emlou Lattimore and edited by Libby Witheford-Smith
ENDS
