These ominous words were the key finding from a marketing survey carried out by a publisher considering a non-fiction manuscript that I’ve been working on for six years. My ambitious effort to compress the efforts of this country’s thousands of peacemakers into one text has had a bleak and bumpy journey.
There’s a subversive pleasure in sharing heroic adventures that have been suppressed, distorted and otherwise buried by determined propaganda. Having been forbidden, they’re all the more electrifying.
For several years I’d offered the key events of my tale as a dramatic narrative in schools, libraries and to groups in the lower North Island, supported by much-appreciated financial contributions from the Peace and Disarmament Education Trust and the Quaker Peace and Service Committee.
It’s been enthusiastically received, especially by children, who are practically bursting with excited questions by the time I finish. At last, a break from war! The key message from teachers has always been, ‘If only we could have it all in a book.’
I was under no illusions when I set out to compile this history in written form. There would be cultural approvals to gain, differing versions of events to consider, hundreds of stories spanning centuries to choose from. It would need many illustrations, incurring major expense and complicated permissions. Nevertheless, I went ahead.
Key spokespeople on issues such as nuclear-free New Zealand generously reviewed early versions of my manuscript. One publisher took it as far as discussing layout and colours for the cover, before pulling out. A second publisher proposed a standardised format, then withdrew. Still another wanted exclusively New Zealand characters, difficult to achieve when peace is a global matter and I knew I couldn’t make it work. Literally years went by, as each potential producer took many months before making a decision.
Local publishers are few in Aotearoa, and this is a New Zealand history so I’d no chance of submitting off-shore.
Finally one editor passed on some private suggestions, along with her regret that her employer wouldn’t take it further. The resulting ‘rush of blood’ propelled me into taking her advice to re-format and self-publish. I would wait no longer.
Cultural approvals I already had. The nightmare of getting complicated and costly permissions for illustrations did lead to major cuts to content. Fortunately much of this peace history, especially around nuclear-free issues, is already well-documented and I could let it go. And yes, ‘Peace’ would exit from the main title.
Early next year Hidden Stories of Heroism for a peaceful planet will be released and all that research in the Alexander Turnbull Library and elsewhere finally made visible.