Death and Dying in New Zealand

Death And Dying In New Zealand

Project 2018-07-06 14:24:25 +1200

Can you help us to produce our next book, Death and Dying in New Zealand?  

Death will touch us all. Yet we don’t talk about it very much.

Currently, and for the most part, a small group of people manage death for us behind closed doors. In today’s world we are less familiar with death; our collective knowledge has diminished. What happens when someone dies? What are the legalities and options? How can we live well until the end?

In an effort to encourage discussion about something that affects us as individuals and as a society, Freerange Press has brought together a variety of contributors to share their knowledge and experiences of current practices, the options available, and ways to prepare, plan and foster conversation.

From tangihanga and bicultural grieving to DIY funerals, new technologies and funeral poverty, this book aims to open up honest discussions, explore what a good death might mean in today’s world and help people to become better informed and consider their choices. We want to get better at thinking, talking and being around death - this makes us better prepared and more resilient.

How we approach death reveals much about how we live and our society. It reflects contemporary challenges – social, economic and environmental. With an increasingly diverse and aging population, advances in technology and medical care, social stratification, economic and environmental challenges, it is important to consider if our needs are being met, and how we deal with death and plan for it as individuals and as a society.

Death and Dying in New Zealand brings together people involved in the death process, academics and writers to share their thoughts and experiences.  Contributors include Steve Braunias (writer), Christchurch Coroner Marcus Elliott, Dr Ruth McManus (death studies expert), Kay Paku (funeral director) and many more.

This is the inaugural edition of our new Radical Futures series – focused discussions about future challenges facing us.

We are asking you to order this book – to help us get it over the line – and to support our new series Radical Futures. There are also options to combine this pre-order with a copy of a classic publication or to become a Radical Futures founder.

Freerange Press is the small, independent and cooperative press that published Kai and culture: Food stories from Aotearoa, Don't Dream It's Over: Reimagining Journalism in Aotearoa NZ and Once in a Lifetime: City-making after Disaster in Christchurch. Death and Dying in New Zealand will be published in October.

Why pledge for this book?

We are a small and independent press, we work collaboratively and often operate on the goodwill of many. Our size and independence means that we can make books about how global issues play out in New Zealand in a unique way. But, like most independent publishers, we have difficulty with our cash flow.

We are asking you to support this project by ordering the book - not only do you receive a pertinent book, you are also helping us to ensure it gets made and are investing in our new series, Radical Futures.

The budget

We are off to a great start with the support of Creative New Zealand. They have contributed funds to pay our contributors (writers, designers etc) something for their hard work (a few have even generously waived their fees in exchange for books), and to go towards publishing costs.

This issue for us is cashflow. We want to pay for this book to go to print, and use any profits to invest into the next Radical Futures book.

We need to crowdfund for pre-sales to make up the difference betwee the costs and the financing: $5300.

Once we have gathered these funds, we can print the book! Then once it is released, we will sell it through bookstores.

Bookstores buy books at 60% of the retail price, that’s how they survive! This means that if we sell all the books – after providing contributor and review copies we would make approx $13,000. This might take a year or two.

This ‘profit’ money will be invested into future Freerange’s ‘Radical Futures’ projects on other important topics.

More about the book 

Features contributions from:

Steve Braunias (writer) - messages to, and remembering, the dead

Dr Kiri Edge & Professor Linda Waimarie Nikora (University of Waikato) - bicultural grieving as therapeutic framework

Marcus Elliott (Christchurch Coroner) - the coroner's role

Lynda Hannah (home funeral guide) - natural funerals

Dr Erin Harrington (academic, UC) - death in popular culture: The Caskeeters

Tricia Hendry (grief expert)- teaching death

Guy Marriage (architect, Victoria University) death architecture and designing for death

Dr Ruth McManus (death studies expert, University of Canterbury) - technology, sustainability and how we dispose of bodies

Melanie Mayell (death walker) – ways to rethink how we deal with death

Catherine Moore (Auckland cemeteries manager) – land use

Kay Paku (funeral director) - tangihanga in modern context

Philippa Thompson and Polly Yeung (social workers) - funeral poverty, funerals as human right

Katie Williams (The Kiwi Coffin Club) – Making DIY coffins and being together

Dr Janine Penfield Winters (palliative care doctor) - when to let go, dignity/mortality in modern health care system

About Freerange Press

Freerange Press publishes books and journals about cities, design and politics. Freerange loves making beautiful books and we are getting really good at it.  

In 2014 we published Once in a Lifetime: City-building after Disaster in Christchurch (which Will Harvie of the Press said was 'the most important earthquake so far' – it features Helen Clark, Kevin McCloud, Sally Blundell, Raf Manji, Rebecca Macfie and a range of others) and in 2012, Christchurch: The Transitional City Pt IV, which Graham Beattie called 'an inspiring piece of publishing'.

In 2016 we released Don't Dream It's Over: Reimagining Journalism in Aotearoa New Zealand. We had great coverage in the media with reviews/interviews and features on RNZ, Pantograph Punch, the Press, Scoop and The Spinoff. The Spinoff also named Freerange as one of the top ten rising stars in t on the NZ literary scene and described the book as 'a thoughtful, powerful collection of essays on the state and prospects of New Zealand journalism'.

Last year we released Kai and culture: Food stories from Aotearoa, which included recipes, case studies and essays looking at our contemporary food culture and the issues involved in the growing, making and eating of our food. Find out more about us here.

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