Puncher & Wattmann
Puncher & Wattmann is an independent Australian publishing house founded by David Musgrave in 2005. It specialises in publishing Australian poetry and literary fiction. Launched by David Malouf, its first title, James Stinks (and so does Chuck) by Nick Riemer (2005) was placed third in the Mary Gilmore Award in 2006. Subsequent poetry titles have included: Simon West's First Names (2006), shortlisted for the 2006 Kenneth Slessor Award and awarded the William Baylebridge Prize in 2007, as well as being commended in the Anne Elder Award; Peter Kirkpatrick's Westering (2006), shortlisted for the 2008 Kenneth Slessor Award and awarded the William Baylebridge Prize in 2007; John Watson's Montale: An Autobiographical Anthology (2006), shortlisted for the 2007 C J Dennis Poetry Prize and Adelaide Festival Award for Innovation; Phyllis Perlstone's The Edge of Everything, shortlisted for the 2008 Kenneth Slessor Award; Carol Jenkins's Fishing in the Devonian, shortlisted for the 2008 C J Dennis Poetry Prize; M T C Cronin's Squeezing Desire Through a Sieve" Micro-Essays on Law and Poetry, shortlisted for the 2010 Adelaide Festival Award for Innovation; Martin Langford's The Human Project: New & Selected Poems, shortlisted for the 2010 John Bray Poetry Prize; Ken Bolton's Sly Mongoose, shortlisted for the Age Book of the Year Poetry Prize; Mark Tredinnick's Fire Diary, awarded the WA Premier's Prize for Poetry.
Puncher & Wattmann is a member of SPUNC , (Small Press Underground networking Community - Australia).
The names "Puncher and Wattmann" come from Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot (1952)," specifically from a speech by Lucky when he is given his hat to think. The excerpt is as follows: