Every now and again, the box needed dusting. Between dustings, it sat on the top shelf looking like a project unfinished. One day Judy took it down and set to work. She had Microsoft Word on her laptop and in the office, access to an OCR scanner for optically recognising text. The scanner could convert an image, in this case, a photocopy to a text file. Judy started scanning the poems; a folder at a time after work.
Finally, she had the text which now needed formatting into Word. Slowly the Word document became the manuscript for an anthology of poems. Perhaps Judy could publish it herself. Janny, her co-editor, had moved back to the Netherlands and Judy, now as the publisher, decided not to get her involved. Judy didn't know how far she would get. Best to try it alone.
The bibliography and indexes were stored on a floppy disk but their printouts could be scanned; the bibliography had not been printed out. The disk was now corrupted and no amount of persuasion could restore the data. The bibliography had to be recreated.
Back in 1995, tracking down so many poets and literary estates to ask for copyright permission had seemed daunting. In the 2010s the prospect of doing so was still daunting but the internet had matured greatly and contact information was easier to find.
There was no money to pay copyright fees but copyright holders were promised a copy of the anthology. All of the poets were supportive and enthusiastic. Only a couple of the literary executors had reservations.
Judy applied for grants and asked for financial support from several sources but was not successful.
One evening at work, Judy was struggling with formatting the cover when a concerned colleague suggested that her husband could do it quicker and better and would do it for nothing; he had the software and was a graphic designer. Justin Biddle took over. When the cover was sorted, he embarked on reformatting the entire anthology into InDesign.
It became now a collaboration between Justin and Judy. The text was stripped of all formatting and proof-reading began. Months of alterations followed. Back & forth. There will be mistakes still in this published version; sometimes a team of one misses even an obvious irregularity.
Quotes for printing made the decision to go off-shore inevitable. Sadly.
How it ended
Through the window. McHughs of Cheltenham in Devonport, Auckland. Walking past one Sunday Judy spotted two poets having lunch here; both of them in this anthology.
Wah Lee's in Hobson Street, Auckland, 2016.
Judy tried hard to find a photo of a shop that has been part of the Auckland scene since the early 1900s but couldn't find one anywhere. How exotic this place seemed to a student back in the 60s. There were no plastic bins and the smell of spices and foreign ingredients mingled in the air.