Book Launch - Richard von Sturmer

As part of Hamilton Book Month, Richard von Sturmer is launching his new book: Walking with Rocks, Dreaming with Rivers: My Year in the Waikato.

The book will be launched by Tracey Slaughter.

Free event - All Welcome.

In 2020 Richard von Sturmer spent twelve months exploring the Waikato region, this book is the record of his discoveries, reveries and experiences. It is a travel journal to some of the lesser visited parts of the Waikato, including the Hinuera Natural Stone quarry, the remnants of the Tokanui Pyschiatric Hospital, the New Zealand Heritage site of the Rotowaro Carbonisation Works, the location of the historic Beeville community, Taupiri cemetery, the peat lakes, and much else.

Von Sturmer is guided to sacred locations by Ngāti Apakura and Ngāti Maniapoto descendent Dr Tom Roa, and by master carver Wiremu Puke, and through all his travels he finds moments of unexpected enchantment: a tree root mistaken for a taniwha, a horse disguised as a zebra. Illustrated by his finely observed photographs Walking with Rocks, Dreaming with Rivers is full of gateways into a hidden Waikato.

Author: Richard von Sturmer is well-known for writing the lyrics of Blam Blam Blam’s ‘There is No Depression in New Zealand’, which has become New Zealand’s alternate national anthem. His previous books include: A Network of Dissolving Threads (Auckland University Press, 1991), Suchness: Zen Poetry and Prose (HeadworX, 2005), This Explains Everything (Atuanui Press, 2016), Postcard Stories (Titus Books, 2019) and Resonating Distances (Titus Books, 2022). Von Sturmer was Writer in Residence at the University of Waikato during 2020 when this book was written.