Victoria University Press



Victoria University Press (VUP), founded in the 1970s, is the book publishing arm of Victoria University of Wellington, located in Wellington, New Zealand.

Publications
VUP is a major scholarly publisher specialising in New Zealand history and public affairs. It is also a leading publisher scholarly non-fiction, literary fiction, and poetry. Its highlights include the novel, Gifted by Patrick Evans, and television's Tim Wilson's Their Faces Were Shining. It has a backlist of over 400 books in print, and on average issues twenty five new titles each year.

VUP publishes vital work in New Zealand history. The History list, particularly social history, is viewed in broad, culturally diverse, and interdisciplinary terms; embracing studies of New Zealand's past and present and how these may shape the future.

Books on Maori topics include important collections of writings in Maori by major figures such as Hirini Moko Mead and Apirana Ngata, as well asDame Joan Metge's widely read books on contemporary Maori society and cross-cultural communication.

Notable authors
VUP has published works of many of New Zealand's strongest and most vibrant poets, including:
 * Prize-winning Jenny Bornholdt
 * James Brown
 * Brian Turner
 * Dinah Hawken
 * Vincent O'Sullivan
 * inaugural NZ Poet Laureate Bill Manhire.

VUP has also published foremost writers such as:
 * Barbara Anderson
 * Catherine Chidgey
 * Damien Wilkins
 * Elizabeth Knox
 * 2013 Man Booker prize winner Eleanor Catton
 * Geoff Cochrane
 * Bernadette Hall
 * Bruce Mason

University funding
VUP receives funding from Victoria University of Wellington, which publisher Fergus Barrowman notes is extremely useful: "If we were independent with no funds at all it would be extremely hard. I don't know how some of New Zealand's independent publishers manage to do the books they do. University support is crucial for us. One of the great things is we can take commercial risks, like first books and short stories."

Awards
Books published by VUP have won numerous Montana New Zealand Book Awards such as:
 * Kate Camp, The Mirror of Simple Annihilated Souls (2011 Poetry Award winner)
 * Brian Turner, Just This (2010 Poetry Award winner)
 * Anna Taylor, Relief (2010 NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book of Fiction Award Winner)
 * Jenny Bornholdt, The Rocky Shore (2009 Poetry category winner)
 * Richard Boast, Buying the Land, Selling the Land (2009 History category winner)
 * Eleanor Catton, The Rehearsal (2009 NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction)