BILL MANHIRE WRITES TO ELIZABETH CAFFIN

At the farewell for Elizabeth Caffin last week, see previous posting, the following letter from Professor Bill Manhire, Victoria University of Wellington, was read to the gathering:

Dear Elizabeth

As the author of AUP's only choose-your-own-adventure book, I want to
wish you all the best for whatever lies ahead. Many excitements, I hope.

It's a very rich and distinguished list you leave for your successor,
and I very much admire the ways in which you've both deepened and
broadened the list Denis McEldowney left for you.

The poetry list has been one of your particular triumphs, and I would
like to congratulate you on that. I think New Zealand poetry is in
something of an Elizabethan age at the moment, and that this has
something to do with the very healthy and enabling rivalry between AUP
and VUP - each list has somehow prompted the other to even greater
heights of excellence.

And I've been on both, which is very nice!

All the best for all the next things. You've spent so much your time at
AUP reading the work of others that I hope you now find time for many of
the things which have been set aside - among them, of course, your own
writing.

All the best

Bill

Author pic from NZ Book Council website.