CQU Press (also known as Old Silvertail’s Outback Books) celebrates 2002, The Year of the Outback, by releasing over twelve new books about the Outback, swelling its popular collection of bush titles to more than fifty.

“Cattle-duffers, Gulf-trekkers, the era of the great overland drovers, poddy-dodgers, crocodile safari hunters, intrepid pioneers of the 1880s land rush to the Kimberly... The history of the Australian Outback makes the American Wild West look like a kindergarten frolic,” said CQU Press Founding Director, Professor David Myers..

CQU Press, provides a priceless university community service to the region and bush people of Queensland and Australia. It also has a list of books on the South Pacific, featuring such titles as Shipwrecks and Seafarers' Scandals, Pitcairn Island, Norfolk Island and Rabuka of Fiji..

“We are a not-for-profit publishing house. Any surplus moneys go towards improving the offering of distance education to remote area students. We are the only university press in the world to specialise in popular Bush and Outback books, instead of only publishing academic research. We are the authority on the Outback for the region, for Australia, and for the world!”.

The new Outback books include: - Flynn’s Outback Angels, Volume II (women nurses, pilots and doctors in the RFDS) - Gordie! Merino Visionary and Bush Legend - The Battlers of Butchers Hill (Cape York Peninsula) - Legends of the Red Heart (pioneers of Alice Springs and the Centre)- - The Ragged Thirteen (Saddlebag Bushrangers of the North in the 1880s) - Keep the Branding Iron Hot (the Underwoods and the Quiltys in the Kimberley) - Barefoot through the Bindies (kids growing up in Townsville and Charters Towers in 1901) - Gold, Graves and Gallows (Australian goldfields stories, featuring lust,theft and murder - Legends of the Outback (by top outback author Marie Mahood) - The Amazing Story of Sister Kenny (Salk vaccine against polio) - The Dinkum Diehards of Alice Springs (eccentric and tough early pioneers) - Ladies First. Great Women Achievers of Today - The Indispensable Goat (Queensland Museum) - The Magic Millions (glamour horse racing on the Gold Coast 1930s-2002).

All of these titles, and more, may be ordered and are available at the CQU Press Bookstore in Rockhampton located in the Old Supreme Court Building on East Street. Hours are 9AM to 5PM. Phone 07 4923 2520. Ask for a free 16 page full colour souvenir Outback Book catalogue. More info a www.outbackbooks.com