The New South Wales Attorney-General and Minister for the Arts, the Hon. Bob Debus launched 2 CQU Press books on the 11th floor of the CQU-Sydney Graduate School last Thursday, May 11.

The titles launched were Michael Wilding's 'Wild Amazement' and Wilding & Myers' (eds) 'Travellers’ Tales'.

The Wilding book is a fictional memoir of Sydney in the early 1970s.

The Minister recalled his and Michael’s bohemian days at Sydney University and in Glebe. He also compared the ambivalences of a politician’s and a writer’s relations with the media on good days and bad.

Vice-Chancellor Professor John Rickard thanked the Minister for the praise he extended to CQU for keeping its CQU Press as a going concern and for performing such a valuable public and community service, especially to the people of the bush.

Former Justice of the NSW Supreme Court, the Hon. Roddy Meagher then launched Professor David Myers' 'Glorious Gods and Swaggering Heroes'.

The fomer Justice said that he didn’t want to wallow in charity and he was very regretful that off-hand he couldn’t think of anything much nasty to say about the book. He said the author seemed to be something of an expert on the Olympian gods’ sex lives and that this should considerably enliven the staid NSW educational curriculum.

Photo above: The Hon. Bob Debus, Attorney General and Minister for the Arts and the Environment with Emeritus Professor Michael Wilding and Mabel Lee.

Photo left: Vice-Chancellor Prof. John Rickard at the microphone with a bemused David Myers looking unusually bashful.