Extraordinary Anywhere

Extraordinary Anywhere: Essays on Place from Aotearoa New Zealand, edited by Ingrid Horrocks and Cherie Lacey

Victoria University Press, 2016. Second edition, 2017.

This collection of personal essays, a first of its kind, re-imagines the idea of place for an emerging generation of readers and writers. It offers glimpses into where we are now and how that feels, and opens up the range and kinds of stories we can conceive of telling about living in Aotearoa New Zealand. Contributors include Tony Ballantyne, Sally Blundell, Alex Calder, Annabel Cooper, Tim Corballis, Martin Edmond, Ingrid Horrocks, Lynn Jenner, Cherie Lacey, Tina Makereti, Harry Ricketts, Jack Ross, Alice Te Punga Somerville, Giovanni Tiso, Ian Wedde, Lydia Wevers, and Ashleigh Young.

‘To investigate something properly we need all three: archives, dreams, memories. [...] And so the liberation of a collection like this becomes possible.’
—Martin Edmond

Introduction

The introductory essay, 'Writing Here', I wrote with Cherie Lacey.

Collaboration

This collaboration also involved working with designers, Jo Bailey and Anna Brown, to create a book that is also extraordinary to look at and hold. Winner of an Upstart Press Award for Best Non-Illustrated Book at the PANZ awards 2017. Here’s Jo writing about the project, along with a set of gorgeous images of the first and second editions.

Reviews

The book was the subject of a number of extended, positive reviews, including by Jane Stafford in The Listener and Max Rashbrooke, and is a touchstone in an assessment of the state of nonfiction by Laurence Patchett in the Academy of NZ Literature. In New Zealand Books, Sarah Quigley described it as ‘groundbreaking’ with no ‘comparable non-fiction book in New Zealand’. Media coverage also included: featuring on the Spinoff and Pantograph Punch and as the ‘Book of the Week’ in the Dominion Post.