YOU ARE INVITED TO A BOOK LAUNCH

WITH readings from
The Trials of Minnie Dean:
a verse biography by Karen Velas
at Scorpio Books, 120 Hereford Street, Christchurch, Wednesday 26 July – 5.30pm drinks, 6pm start.

James Norcliffe will introduce the book.

The Trials of Minnie Dean:
a verse biography

Bridging poetry and biography, James Norcliffe has called this book genre busting.

Minnie Dean: the first – and only – woman to be hanged in New Zealand. Baby farmer and child murderer, or hardworking wife and mother, supporting her family by caring for unwanted children in a society that shunned her?

Zelas explores the trials of Minnie Dean using a myriad of voices, including Dean’s own, from her childhood in Scotland to the gallows in Invercargill, 1895. Zelas brings to life the society in which Dean lived, and poet as psychiatrist re-examines some key witnesses.
ISBN 978-0-9941299-9-4 pp 216 RRP: $25
M?karo Press, Submarine imprint