Volume 70 Number 1, 2011

Editorial

I’d like to welcome Meanjin’s incoming editor, Sally Heath. Sally has a long and distinguished career as a journalist and an editor and her most recent role was as the editor of the Age’s A2. I’ve had the good fortune to be edited by Sally on many an occasion: she is tough, warm and passionate about the writing she publishes. Meanjin is lucky to have her.

As for my last issue of Meanjin, you’ll find that the essays are possibly a more eclectic range than usual. A sign, perhaps, of my desire to cover as much ground as I can before I leave. There is a strong investigative piece by Lorin Clarke, in which she asks some tough questions of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Kate Holden considers the relationship between feminism and sex work, Laurie Steed gives us the lowdown on why YouTube is no longer the bad arse of the digital world, Ben O’Mara spends time with Billie, queen of the drifting circuit. Mischa Merz considers what happens to women boxers bodies as they age, Jacinda Woodhead casts a frank eye over the difficult territory of abortion, Colin Nettelbeck is forced—again by the body’s frailties—to consider immobilisation as a form of stillness and Bob Charles takes us deep into the hurricane of anxiety that he struggles with most days. And there’s more: Duncan Reid on guilt, Melissa Bellanta on Victorian spiritualism, Morris Lurie on not writing, Bryony Cosgrove on suffering breast cancer and a consequent overdose of all things pink and last, but definitely not least, we reproduce the transcript of the lecture given at the end of last year by former Meanjin editor Jim Davidson to commemorate Meanjin’s 70th birthday.

And now, briefly, to some thank yous. Meanjin’s designer, Stuart Geddes, said on Spike, recently, that the ‘most rewarding projects have always been the ones where a group of people manage, through their exposure to one another and to that project, to do something better than they could otherwise have done.’ He’s right. I thank Stuart, Jessica Au, who is an extremely talented woman (her novel Cargo will be published by Picador), Richard McGregor, who has been copyediting Meanjin for fifteen years now and is, most importantly, a Geelong supporter. It has been an honour to work with Judith Beveridge, Meanjin’s poetry editor. Thanks to our web guys and gals at Inventive Labs, proofreaders Natalie Book and Bella Li and the many interns who have given the magazine their love and labour for little return—the most recent of these were Emily Kiddell and Lucy Mackay-Sim but we still have a soft spot for Ian See, who now has himself a real job as an editor at Scribe. Thank you to my comrades at Overland, particularly Jeff Sparrow. Meanland has been an important collaboration and it will continue into 2011. Lastly, thanks to the writers we published. I learnt a lot from you—and trust that our readers had the same sense of pleasure engaging with your ideas and words as I did.

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Editorial by Sophie Cunningham

Cartoon

• Mulgrave, je t’aime by Oslo Davis

Newsreel

• With Peter Kay, Paul Magee, Prithvi Varatharajan and Damon Young

Essays

• CAL/Meanjin essay: ‘Weeds are as important as trees’: Where now for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival? by Lorin Clarke

• This Woman I Knew by Jacinda Woodhead

• Bad Romance: Five Years of YouTube and the Apolitical White Noise by Laurie Steed

• Sex Work and Feminism by Kate Holden

• The Drifters by Ben O’Mara

• Knee Capper: A Trip to Happiness by Colin Nettelbeck

• Stet by Me: Thoughts on Editing Fiction by Mandy Brett

• Hurricane by Bob Charles

• But is that the end of it all? by Duncan Reid

• Fighting Time by Mischa Merz

• On Not Writing by Morris Lurie

• The Ritual of Vintage by Kristel Thornell

• Victorian Spiritualism and Other Black Comedies by Melissa Bellanta

• A Cork upon the Ocean: Meanjin and the Changing Context 1940–2010 by Jim Davidson

Memoir

• In the Pink: Visiting Cancer Country by Bryony Cosgrove

• These places have rules that aren’t written anywhere by Angelina Mirabito

• The Journalist and the Teenager by Sonya Voumard

Interview

• Becoming Leaner: Sophie Cunningham talks to Rupert Thompson

Fiction

• The Welcome by Michelle Murray

• Xanthorrhoea’s Shorts by Melissa Beit

• A Story in Writing by Ryan O’Neill

• Decent Men by Linden Hyatt

• Matter by Miriam Sved

Poetry

• Spiders about the House by David Brooks

• Clouds by Bruce Dawe

• Bushwhacked by Krystyna Drapalski

• All Eyes by Stephen Edgar

• kids & camellias by Michael Farrell

• Two Moments by Mran-Maree Laing

• Wren Haiku by Andrew Lansdown

• Arboreal by Anthony Lawrence

• Abermain Quarry by Greg McLaren

• Touch and Flow by Cassandra O’Loughlin

• The Killer inside Me by Pip Smith