Media Release

Embargoed until publication on Wednesday 20 March 2013

Paul Callaghan Luminous Moments

A superb selection of Sir Paul Callaghans writing is publishing this week. With the support of the Callaghan family, we release Paul Callaghan: Luminous Moments on the first anniversary of his death, to celebrate the life of a remarkable New Zealander. This release also marks the launch of BWB Texts a new digital imprint from Bridget Williams Books. As Catherine Callaghan has commented: as a person who embraced new technologies, [my father] would have enjoyed knowing that his work was being published digitally, reaching new audiences. He was a communicator to the end, and in this small way we are enabling him to keep talking to us. Paul Callaghan: Luminous Moments brings together some of his most significant writing. Whether he describes his childhood in Wanganui, reflects on discovering the beauty of science, sets out New Zealands future potential or discusses the experience of fatherhood, Sir Paul Callaghan offers eloquent narratives that will endure in this countrys literature. Meeting with the cancer that ended his life, he documents for us all ways of living well in the face of illness. As his daughter writes in her moving foreword: He became his own scientific experiment. 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.

Publishing Wednesday March 20 2013 RRP$4.99 ISBN 9781927131800 (EPUB), 9781927131817 (KINDLE) Available direct from www.bwb.co.nz and from major retailers including Amazon, Kobo and eBooks.com

Author information
Sir Paul Callaghan was born in Wanganui in August 1947 and died in Wellington in March 2012. He received international recognition for his scientific research in the field of nuclear magnetic resonance. He was founding director of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, based at Victoria University of Wellington. In 2011 he was named New Zealander of the Year for his outstanding leadership for more than thirty years as a scientist, teacher, visionary and communicator.

Catherine Callaghan is visiting New Zealand through the week of this first anniversary and is available for interview. Tom Rennie is available for discussion of BWB Texts. Media copies of Paul Callaghan: Luminous Moments are available. For interviews or review copies, please contact Angela Radford: angelaradford@xtra.co.nz, 027 540 1104

For more information or a review copy, contact publicist Angela Radford P O Box 12474, Wellington 6144 Phone: 04 473 8128 Email: info@bwb.co.nz www.bwb.co.nz Phone: 09 579 7351 Mobile: 027 540 1104 Email: angelaradford@xtra.co.nz

What are BWB Texts?

A BWB Text is a short, digital-only piece of highquality 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 Zealands 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. Starting with Paul Callaghan: Luminous Moments, more BWB Texts will be released in the coming weeks including: Maurice Gees Creeks & Kitchens: A Childhood Memoir, Rebecca Macfies Report from Christchurch (in association with the New Zealand Listener), Kathleen Joness I think I am going to die.: Katherine Manseld at Fontainebleau, Hamish Campbells The Zealandia Drowning Hypothesis and Sir Tipene ORegans New Myths and Old Politics.

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 BWBs 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.

Why are BWB Texts important?

Debate new readers, new thinking BWB 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 media BWB 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 boundaries Produced within weeks and worldwide in distribution, BWB Texts broadcast New Zealand voices and stories across boundaries.

Who is behind BWB Texts?

BWB Texts was instigated by publisher Tom Rennie and journalist Max Rashbrooke, in partnership with BWBs 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.

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