Published 3 December 2025
Celebrating 85 years! Let’s look back with a critical eye—and look forward with renewed curiosity. What has publication in Meanjin meant for some of our finest writers? How has their practice developed, how has Australia evolved, and how does that first piece read today? An eclectic and impactful group of writers—including Gaja Kerry Charlton, Peter Craven, Sarah Holland-Batt, John Kinsella, Ellen van Neerven, π.O., Bruce Pascoe, Sara M. Saleh and Christos Tsiolkas—reflect with generosity on the evolution of their practice. Enriching that critical approach is our feature interview with Meanjin’s founding editor, Clem Christesen (1911-2003): expect a fiery set of provocations drawing on decades of editorials that ‘make clear the connection between art and politics.’ This historic edition of Australia’s leading literary journal will rapidly become a collector’s item. Embrace Australia’s finest writers.
The Meanjin Paper
Wanjawurru: Reimagining Australia in 30 years
June Oscar AO
EDITORIAL
Esther Anatolitis
Σταθία Ανατολίτη
State of the Literary Nation
The language of the literary unconscious
Alison J Barton
Publishing for the end times
Farrin Foster
Making marks: Literary journals and cultural value
Carody Culver
Fiction
The Angry Wu Zili
Ouyang Yu
Edward and James look around
Luke McCarthy
Hands
Allee Richards
Interview
Clem Christesen
Memoir
Banana
Aran Joad
The Year In…
Poetry
Tim Loveday
Essays
Resisting while tired
Marlene Jo Baquiran
Shelves and selves
Damon Young
MXTPE (2025 Remix)
Christos Tsiolkas
Poetry
The bellbird
John Blay
Still waiting
Claire Watson
How to make a scene
Nigel Featherstone
Art School Critique
Dana Hubraq
Space
Tina Huang
Θαύμα
Georgia Kartas
Breakage
Jennifer Zimmer-Wilson
3:01
Teneale Lavender
The Informants
Luke Patterson
زنان از یاد رفته شرقی
Nila Kerishma Nowrozy
Inala Markets
Vuong Pham
Meanjin 85th Anniversary
An encounter with a larger Australia
Sarah Holland-Batt
Reflections on my Meanjin essay: Healing, Reconciliation, Truth-telling and Treaty
Gaja Kerry Charlton
No time for elegy: to write in a time of genocide
Sara M Saleh
On ‘Skin’
Ellen van Neerven
When the ABC growls
Bruce Pascoe
Who wants yesterday’s papers?
Peter Craven
Acta non verba—almost three-and-a-half decades of working with Meanjin
John Kinsella
Retrospective Rave
π.O.
Books
Australia in three books: My Australia
Gareth Evans
What are you doing with your hands?
Jocasta Suzanne
An action of the present
Edie Mitsuda
Breaking the rules
Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn
Taking the piss
Nina Culley
What did the Romans ever do for us?
Joshua Abbey
Jim Davidson has exercised his right of reply on π.O.’s piece ‘Retrospective Rave’.
