Welcome to the online home of Fine Line Press, New Zealand. Here you can learn about FLP’s recent books: A Walk in Japan
(2015) and Whisper of the Land (2014). For your delight and edification earlier books were Downunder Japan (March 2012), Japan on Foot (Dec. 2011) and Ribbons of Fate (Dec. 2010). Our first books were Glimpses of Old Tokyo and Forty Stories of Japan. There is also Exercises for Glimpses of Old Tokyo for students of English. Further down the line will be the memoir of a celebrity interviewer in Tokyo and a detective novel, Imperfect Strangers, by Lea O’Harra.
The wish and intention of FineLine Press is to produce books of quality mostly by new writers. To begin with the focus is on Japan, where the writer of Glimpses of Old Tokyo lives. FineLine Press is interested in writers who feel that they can write, especially about their own real experiences, in an alluring, lyrical and delightful way.
FineLine Press originated out of our good fortune to work on the memories of a Japanese writer, Masuho Fujita. The production of Glimpses of Old Tokyo took several years working with the writer, the artist, an independent editor and others. It seemed logical and desirable after so much work to create a personal outlet for Masuho’s book.
More about Fine Line Press and its founder Graham Bathgate
Fine Line Press (FLP) was established in 2009 by Graham Bathgate in Kapiti, New Zealand. We are now based in Kerikeri, Northland, NZ.
Graham was a high school teacher in Masterton and a communication skills tutor at Wellington Polytechnic for 12 years before going to Tokyo to teach English at the English Language Education Council (ELEC) in Jimbocho, central Tokyo. It was here that he met Masuho Fujita, a student who wrote beautiful essays. They later worked together on the production of Glimpses of Old Tokyo.
Fine Line Press produces books of quality, many by first-time writers with fine stories to tell about life in Japan. There have been over half a dozen books on Japan. Another collection like “Forty Stories” and “Downunder Japan” is a possibility. Meantime, work is continuing on a tribute collection about a celebrity interviewer in Tokyo and we have high hopes of a fictionalised prison diary based on real life experience.