Book Launch 2008

Launching View from the Lucky Hotel

The launch of View from the Lucky Hotel was a lively event with warm support from the crowd who rolled up to cheer the book on its way.

Five Islands Press publishers Kevin Brophy and Dan Disney introduced the guest speaker, Philip Salom, and author Sandy Fitts.

In his eloquent improvised speech, Philip Salom referred to the poetry as being intelligent and discursive, observing that poems written with such a clear and knowing manner (including wit and irony) give the reader a wonderfully trustable thinking.

Sandy Fitts thanked Philip for his generous remarks on her poetry, and Kevin and Dan for their support, as well as Peter Steele, Jennifer Strauss, and Helen Garner for their comments that appear on the book cover.

Thanks were also due, Sandy said, to many friends and poets who made comment on poems and the manuscript at earlier stages of development.

Drawing attention to the brilliant book cover, Sandy thanked Nguyễn Văn Cừơng for allowing her to adapt his artwork. She also thanked Vũ Diệu Anh for her translations, and paid tribute to Nguyễn Thanh Thủy, whose friendship had informed the spirit of many of the poems set in Hanoi.