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This is an unconventional memoir, beautifully written with an unexpected touch that will surprise and even delight the reader. Douglas Wright was one of the pioneers of contemporary dance in NZ and can now be revealed to be a superb writer as well. In this book he writes about growing up gay in a provincial New Zealand community becoming a dancer (he didn't start until he was 19) and moving from ballet to contemporary dance working in New York with the famous Paul Taylor Dance Company and becoming one of its stars gay relationships across the international arts scene performing with the Limbs company in Auckland drug and alcohol abuse and periods of ugly personal decline contracting HIV-AIDS a long-time close relationship with Janet Frame (the chapter on Frame is extraordinary, as good as anything from Michael King) searching for inspiration in his spiritual life (there's a fascinating account of going on a ten-day meditation retreat where the rule is total silence for the duration).

During his career Douglas Wright established himself as New Zealand's leading contemporary dancer and choreographer. He started out with the Limbs Dance Company in 1980, then worked in New York with the Paul Taylor Company and DV8 Physical Theatre in London before forming the Douglas Wright Dance Company in Auckland in 1989. During this time he created over 30 major dance works, which culminated in his 2006 masterpiece 'Black Milk', his last major work. The dance critic Jennifer Shennan wrote, 'In my opinion, this is Wright's, New Zealand's, and dare I say it, the world's finest choreography. I dare.' Black Milk is a permanent record of this extraordinary piece of dance theatre, built largely around the remarkable images of Auckland photographer John Savage. When seeing these images Douglas Wright commented: When I saw John's first pictures of a performance I felt that here, for the only time in my experience in photography, someone had managed to capture the breathless sorcery of live dance-theatre without pulling its wings off.

'Malcolm died, Leo died, Janet died. Now I knew I was alive . . . 2003 was the year I was sentenced to live.' This deliciously written memoir is a follow-up to Douglas's acclaimed Ghost Dance, which won the E. H. McCormick Best First Book of Non-fiction Award at the 2005 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. The narrative takes place in the couple of years since Ghost Dance was written. In this new book Wright charts his journey through depression, despair and suicide to eventual resurrection, as he is 'sentenced to live' with HIV and without his best friends. Part of the book is set in respite house for people with HIV, where we meet a rich array of characters coming to terms with their life sentences. The remainder of the book is a measured unfolding of the process behind the creation of Black Milk, Wright's new work of dance-theatre. Terra Incognito resonates with Wright's originality and black humour.

This Book Teaches Children how to handle grief in creative ways. We all experience grief at some time in our lives. The children in your life will enjoy this comforting story. Through heartbreak, Lonita pushes through to find the will to celebrate life in creative ways. A fun family or class activity adds to the enjoyment of Lonnie's Tree.

The Salt Lake City metropolitan area is one of the most seismically hazardous urban areas in the interior of the western U.S. because of its location within the Intermountain Seismic Belt and its position adjacent to the active Wasatch fault. The elapsed time since the last large earthquake on the Salt Lake City segment of the Wasatch fault is approaching the mean recurrence interval based on the short-term paleoseismic record. In order to help raise the awareness of the general public and to help reduce earthquake risk in this area, we have developed nine microzonation maps showing surficial ground-shaking hazard. The maps are GIS-based and incorporate the site response effects of the unconsolidated sediments that underlie most of the metropolitan area within Salt Lake Valley. These nine maps, at a scale of 1:75,000, make up three sets, each consisting of three maps that display color-contoured ground motions in terms of (1) peak horizontal acceleration, (2) horizontal spectral acceleration at a period of 0.2 sec (5 Hz) and, (3) horizontal spectral acceleration at a period of 1.0 sec (1 Hz). One set of maps consists of deterministic or “scenario” maps for a moment magnitude (M) 7.0 earthquake on the Salt Lake City segment of the Wasatch fault. The two other sets are probabilistic maps for the two return periods of building code relevance, 500 and 2,500 years.