My first chapbook, The Happy Farang, was self-published in 2000, although the colophon page lists Pumpkin Press as the publisher.
The making of The Happy Farang
The poems in this chapbook were all written while travelling in Thailand and Laos in 1999. Most are written from the point of view of a Western tourist or, in Thai, ‘farang’.
On my return to Australia, keen to have a lasting memento of my travels, I typed the poems into a word processing file on a PC and then printed one copy on a cheap laser-jet printer before finalising the cover.
I made up the name of Pumpkin Press, and listed its address as that of my own apartment at the time.
In 2000 I took this chapbook with me to Newcastle, where I stayed with a friend who had access to a colour photocopier at his work. Late one night we printed 200 copies of each page. We then took the pages home and stapled them all together.
And thus, The Happy Farang was born; and twelve years later, it was reborn.
