essays
Daley dives into Canberra’s unsavoury and murky territorial history
Two architects from CanberraLAB talk about their city’s creative potential
Journalist Katharine Murphy on connectedness and what it means for our future
Christos Tsiolkas talks cinema, sex and politics with Heather Taylor Johnson
Frank Bowden on the particularities of the Canberra health industry
Gideon Haigh on Prime Ministers' libraries and political legacy in Australia
Chris Hammer talks about Canberra’s ‘turf wars’ and the mapping of power
Suzy Freeman-Greene spends a year mapping her encounters with beggars in Melbourne
Chad Parkhill on the strange and complex history of your favourite cocktail
Lyndal Walker on sharing house, keeping house (or not) and women in the wake of 70s feminism
Sam Twyford-Moore on Twitter as the new novel.
Anna Heyward discusses what searching through Meanjin’s dusty archives revealed about Australian literature
Ben Quilty travels to the Queensland rainforest for a sleepover and portraiture session with Germaine Greer
Damon Young looks at the art critic and his garden
Christopher Currie considers the year in fiction and highlights some overlooked gems
Helen Ennis considers the life and work of photographer Olive Cotton, and the strange nature of biography itself
Chris McAuliffe examines the challenges for Australian artists
Three Australian writers reflect on the work of artist William Robinson
Peter Macinnis discusses the birth of the naturalist-artist through the partnership of curiosity and science.
Federation under fire: Bhakthi Puvanenthiran examines Australia’s divisive nature
Liam Pieper reflects on the shielding that has led to Australian peoples' perpetual ignorance of our true history
Dagmar Eichberger looks at the late medieval preoccupation with death in art.
Rebe Taylor examines the legacy of Truganini, and the enduring shame of a history under fire
James Bradley on ghost stories and the science of haunting.
Maria Tumarkin on the power of books to heal trauma and encourage empathy
Malcolm Turnbull delivers the 2012 George Winterton Lecture and a call for greater honesty and accountability in government
Ewan Morrison on the pervasiveness of brands and the void they leave when deleted from our lives.
James Douglas talks research, writing and letting go with The New Yorker’s David Grann
Max Whitten on an unlikely new Australian entomological discovery.
Kate Darian-Smith charts the latest steps in the immigration of Australian Literature to Japan.
Elliot Perlman comes face-to-face with the consequences of our skewed and obsessive attitude to refugees
Annabel Stafford discusses the point of pointlessness
Heather Merle Benbow & Lara Anderson on the politics of food consumption.
Simon Phillips speaks on the value of an education in empathy
Martin Langford examines the poetry of Robert Gray and his latest work, Cumulus.
Dinners, gifts, theatre, and feuds: Neil Armfield on the rich and generous life of Patrick White.
After the death of poets Peter Steele and Rosemary Dobson, Chris Wallace-Crabbe remembers the great work and a long friendship
Naomi Manuell rethinks her dread of a digitally-enhanced library revolution by recognising its infinite possibilities.
Chilla Bulbeck looks at the emergence of liberal ‘tolerance of intolerance’ on questions of racism and gender
A discussion of Frank Moorhouse’s Cold Light and the role of Canberra in Australian fiction
Alex Mitchell on the corrosive effects of lobbying in Australian politics.
Gillian Terzis takes a trip to the Pilbara to see what a mining boom looks like up close
Geoff Raby on the often troubled, ever complex Australia-China relationship
Rebecca Harkins-Cross on the life and particular gifts of the mighty Joan Didion
Josiane Behmoiras finds herself in an unexpected concentric set of spiritual rings in India.
Ella Mudie on Eileen Gray, architecture and solitude.
Marcus Westbury takes a closer look at the grand narrative of China’s exponential growth
Raimond Gaita reflects on the changing role of the university and its ability to engage creatively and critically with the world around it.
Alison Ravenscroft on the strange forms Indigenous history has taken in recent Australian fiction
Sally McLaren looks at the troubled life of the Jaffna Public Library
Dean Ashenden on Australian Anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner.
Christopher Hodges on how the Papunya Tula Artists changed the face of Australian art.
The Book and Its Time by Ivor Indyk
A case of sex, murder and mesmerism brings the Age of Sensation to Australia.
As a young journalist in 1989 Sonya Voumard moved to Queensland, and discovered a strange and unfamiliar land
Gabriella Coslovich finds Catholic influence and Indigenous heritage merge in the art of Balgo
Rachel Buchanan learns to read the many moods of the road.
Mark Willacy writes from a Japan still on edge after Fukushima.
Jane Grant on the life, legacy and influence of Sam Goldberg.
Helen Camakaris on how our evolutionary instincts are shaping our future on the planet.
Lili Wilkinson on why teenagers today are the first generation of true readers.
Richard King on the ever-increasing power of ‘offendedness’ in public debate.
Tony Birch on the writing of his new novel, Blood.
Following Bryan Keon-Cohen’s memoir, Nonie Sharp reflects upon the beginnings of the Mabo case.
Simon Crean talks to Sally Heath about the National Cultural Policy and the state of the Arts in Australia
Marcia Langton on the history and future of recognising Indigenous Australians in our Constitution.
A collection of poetry, audio, photography and discussion around the idea of collaboration.
Laurie Oakes speaks at the launch of Alex Mitchell’s Come the Revolution
Owen Richardson on Gig Ryan’s New and Selected Poems.
Mran-Maree Laing stays up one sweltering Sydney night and learns to live with the heat
Peter Timms on the modern Wunderkammer that is MONA.
Alexis Wright on the Deep Weather of 2010 and what it can teach about this land.
Damon Young on the devilish art of biography.
Michael Giacometti looks at the state of Indigenous publishing.
Peter Craven talks Foster Wallace, Eugenides and ‘The Marriage Plot’.
Simone Ubaldi puts her cynicism aside and reflects on the Ten Principles of the Burning Man Festival.
Sally Heath talks to Robyn Nevin, Pamela Rabe and Aidan Fennessy about the MTC’s 2012 season
Sam Cooney discusses the many joys of editing young writers.
Who is that guy in the mirror, wonders Bob Charles
Richard Flanagan on why true the novelist transcends politics, even their own.
So close to home: Sophie Cunningham, Delia Falconer, Peter Timms, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Matthew Condon and Paul Daley discuss the process of writing the ‘cities’ series.
Alex Miller reflects on his new novel, Autumn Laing and the people who inspired it.
Maria Tumarkin meditates on a case of moral bankruptcy in the academic jungle
Jeff Sparrow looks at how violence is used to foster public unity in the US.
After the digital revolution, the passion for music remains, writes Simon Groth
Ktima Heathcote finds literary culture in Tennant Creek alive and well
Les Murray reflects on an original and disobedient telling of the national experience.
Thomas Keneally considers the capaciousness of the garden of our national identity
Henry Skerritt considers the memory of one man’s achievement.
Brad Nguyen confronts the terrifying image of his own inevitable death and finds it to be Justin Bieber
Guy Rundle makes a case for considering pornography on the scale of human sexuality.
Julieanne Lamond looks at Australian literary values and whether they place women as outsiders.
Stephanie Honor Convery traces the complexities of Indigenous storytelling.
Mel Campbell takes the ‘Naipaul test’.
Mandy Brett reflects on the joys, sorrows and hard slog of being an editor.