Meanjin Subscriberthon: What You Can Win
Stacks of books for one thing … an extraordinary library of contemporary Australian writing, and we’re giving away one each day, books by the shelf-full. Every day of the Meanjin Subscriberthon week, December 7 to 11, new and renewing subscribers to the Meanjin print edition have a daily chance to win: A library of 50 books, including some of the best Australian writing from the past 18 months, valued at $1500. One of 10 subscriptions to Crikey, valued at $199 each. One of five free subscriptions to ArtsHub valued at $149 each. And EVERY new or renewing print subscriber in […]
What I’m Reading
During my adolescence I read almost nothing. I lived on farms. When I was 19 someone gave me a copy of Patrick White’s novel The Vivisector and it blew my head off. White’s style captured me, his acerbic poetry and mordant (almost cruel) representations of art and artists and society people in Sydney. Characters come and go in vivid takes and take-downs (by the author) in what I later realised was White’s typical satire and grotesquerie—the latter as a kind of gothic lightning. I had realised the style of authorial narration. I woke as a reader … Recently, I fell […]
Our National Culture of Denial
The targeted reporting of my blog post as ‘unAustralian’ led to dozens of death threats flooding my inboxes. Suddenly, I was being told to go back to where I’d come from or else.
Reading the Virus: The Contagion of Covid Publishing
Racing to publish a book on a significant event or trend is no new phenomenon. Timelines are pulled forward—though it still takes a few months to put a book together, from writing the words to stock arriving in bookshops. Recent examples include books on the Thai cave rescue, Christchurch massacre, and forthcoming titles on the 2019-20 Black Summer. It’s no surprise then that with such a globally pervasive event such as the current pandemic, Covid-19 books are already appearing. In the acknowledgements section of her book about Covid-19, Deborah Mackenzie states ‘this is what the book trade calls a “crash” […]
Essays
When We Talk About Time
Every now and then, perhaps every few weeks, I end up asking how you feel about time. It baffles you, this strange question—it baffles me too. Perhaps that’s why I keep asking you—maybe it’s not that I’m searching for an answer that I cannot find, it’s that I don’t want to be alone in my confusion. It feels as if the past decade, but particularly this year, time has receded in a tide, never to break back on land. I don’t know where I’ve been.
Fiction
Tempting the Pest
‘Push!’ I yell even though it’s just me heaving the long claw of crowbar down into the sand and wedging up the fence from below. The mesh winces, creaks. ‘Push!’ I shout like a midwife birthing new life; here in the long hot flat with the afternoon swelling and the wires ruling long lines of fire. I press what is left of my weight into the bar, heaving as the fence clings on, its thin nails gripping at the soil.
Memoir
In The Beach
Dang, sorry. This is only available to a Meanjin subscriber. But we can fix that. It’s just $100 for a print subscription, $5 for a monthly digital subscription, and $50 for an annual digital subscription. DIGITAL PRINT
Poetry
Patina on Glass
Dang, sorry. This is only available to a Meanjin subscriber. But we can fix that. It’s just $100 for a print subscription, $5 for a monthly digital subscription, and $50 for an annual digital subscription. DIGITAL PRINT
