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Published 16 March 2021

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Summer 2020

Published 1 December 2020

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Spring 2020

Published 15 September 2020

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In our September edition, there's a brace of fine writing in the time of Covid-19.

From Jack Latimore, 'Through a Mask, Breathing': an expansive, lyrical essay that couples a local response to the Black Lives Matter movement to ideas around gentrification, St Kilda, Sidney Nolan and the life and music of Archie Roach, all of it set against the quiet menace of the pandemic.

In other pieces drawn from our Covid moment, Kate Grenville charts the troubled progress and unexpected insights of days under lockdown, Fiona Wright finds space and rare pleasures as the world closes in, Krissy Kneen takes on the sudden obsession with 'iso-weight', Justin Clemens searches for hope in the world of verse, Desmond Manderson and Lorenzo Veracini consider viruses, colonialism and other metaphors, and there's short fiction from Anson Cameron, 'The Miserable Creep of Covid'. 

Meanjin Papers

THROUGH A MASK, BREATHING 
Jack Latimore

Winter 2020

Published 16 June 2020

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In this edition, author and essayist Lucia Osborne-Crowley examines the cost of intimacy for women in a world where men demand exclusive access to the closeness of their female partners, often without returning the emotional labour involved.

How do we write the apocalypse? Author Lucy Treloar wonders at the craft of fiction when confronted by unrelenting apocalyptic reality and considers the space between the real and the observed.

Guy Rundle recalls the extraordinary and now lost days of big production TV sketch comedy. It’s the eighties and in the writers’ room at Full Frontal the winds of change are gathering

Sophie Cunningham pauses as a summer of fire merges with an autumn of pandemic. She writes on nature, community, politics, desperation and belonging.

Claire G. Coleman writes on the long shadow of the Stolen Generations: ‘Dad discovered he was Noongar when he was 63, when I was 30, when his Uncle Bob died...’

Meanjin Papers

DEPRECIATED: THE PRICE OF LOVE 
Lucia Osborne-Crowley

Autumn 2020

Published 17 March 2020

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In this edition's cover essay, Gomeroi poet, essayist and scholar Alison Whittaker takes on the idea of white fragility and asks 'Has white people becoming more aware of their fragilities and biases really done anything for us—aside from finding a new way to say 'one of the good ones' or worse, asking us to?'. Whittaker aims squarely at a progressive white culture that sees an elevated racial conscience as a path to post-colonial innocence.

In other essays, Timmah Ball asks that most fundamental of questions: Why Write? 'Were they looking for the next successful blak book.' while Anna Spargo-Ryan writes powerfully on the often-brutal history of abortion in women's lives and men's politics. Rick Morton shares his version of Australia in Three Books and Maxine Beneba Clarke considers risk and writers' acts of courage.

Meanjin Papers

SO WHITE. SO WHAT by Alison Whittaker

Summer 2019

Published 3 December 2019

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'On the afternoon of first contact Cook's crew shot two Gwaegal men who opposed them from the shore. Cook observed, correctly, "all they seem'd to want was for us to be gone".'

In the December issue of Meanjin Paul Daley takes a long look at the complex legacy of James Cook. In a timely essay ahead of the Cook sestercentennial in 2020, Daley digs deep into the many and conflicting strands of this Australian colonial foundation story. Was Cook a blameless master navigator? Or should he be connected intimately to the dispossession of First Nations peoples that followed his voyage of 1770?

Also in this issue, writing from: Gabrielle Chan, Bri Lee, Greg Jericho, Tony Birch, Gregory Day, Robbie Arnott, Ruby Hamad, Mesh Tennakoon, Carmel Bird, Oliver Mestitz, Emma Marie Jones, Belinda Rule, Anthony Lawrence, Geoff Page, Jaya Savige and more.

Meanjin Papers

ON COOK
Paul Daley

Spring 2019

Published 17 September 2019

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In the lead essay UNEARTHED: Last Days of The Anthropocene, James Bradley writes compellingly on the urgent crisis of climate change. 'There is a conversation I do not know how to have, a conversation about what happens if we are headed for disaster. It is not a theoretical question for me. I have two daughters.'

Miles Franklin shortlisted author Michael Mohammed Ahmad writes on how his thinking about literature, politics and race was shaped in Reading  Malcolm X inArab-Australia. In an accidental companion piece, This Vast Conspiracy of Memory, Khalid Warsame reflects on life and writing while making a complete reading of the works of James Baldwin.

Among this edition's other authors are Glyn Davis, Karen Wyld, Fatima Measham, Maxine Beneba Clarke, Maria Takolander and Meg Mundell. 

Meanjin Papers

UNEARTHED 
James Bradley

Winter 2019

Published 18 June 2019

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Meanjin Papers

THIS WOMAN IS HYSTERICAL
Fiona Wright

Autumn 2019

Published 11 March 2019

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Meanjin Papers

QUEST AND QUEERNESS: ROLE-PLAYING IDENTITY
Adolfo Aranjuez

Summer 2018

Published 3 December 2018

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'You have to go back in time to change a predicted future. If you can predict it today it’s already too late. This sounds paranoid but it’s also amazing.'

In her lead essay in the Summer edition of Meanjin, Briohny Doyle ponders technology, time, sex and paranoia, with illustrations from Mandy Ord. Also in this issue, Behrouz Boochani and Omid Tofighian maintain an online conversation during The Last Days of Manus Prison, and Katharine Murphy charts the decline and fall of Malcolm Turnbull.

Plus: Mark McKenna, Yen-Rong Wong, Melissa Lucashenko, Eloise Grills, Sumudu Samarawickrama, Guy Rundle, Shastra Deo and Shaun Micallef.

Meanjin Papers

TIME MACHINE
Briohny Doyle & Mandy Ord

Spring 2018

Published 17 September 2018

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'Between 1970 and 2012, according to the World Wildlife Fund, the population of non-human vertebrate animals on earth dropped by 58%.'

In her lead essay in the Spring edition of Meanjin, author Jane Rawson wonders at the unfolding tragedy of our moment: we are living through a mass extinction. By 2020 we will have lost 70% of animal life on the planet. 'There is only the tiniest whisper of wildness left on the landmasses of this planet and that tiny whisper is on the brink of going silent. Everything—all of it—will soon be us.'

Plus: Bruce Pascoe, Fatima Measham, Katharine Murphy, Jonno Revanche, Gray Connolly, Robyn Williams, Sheila Ngoc Pham, Anne Casey, Ben Walter and Shaun Micallef.

Meanjin Papers

THE INVISIBLE EXTINCTIONS
Jane Rawson

Winter 2018

Published 18 June 2018

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Clementine Ford wonders whether the #MeToo movement represents a turning point for women, Anna Spargo-Ryan thinks not: 'In the wake of #MeToo, when women said "this time it will be different", it wasn't.' Joumanah El Matrah picks over the idea of religious freedom, Liz Conor recalls the section 18C case against cartoonist Bill Leak, and an earlier race controversy over the work of Eric Jolliffe. Clare Payne argues that women are entering a new age of economic empowerment. Timmah Ball brings an Indigenous perspective to the home ownership debate, Hugh Mackay offers calm reflections on the madness of Year 12, Carmel Bird ponders her many connections to Nobel Prize contender Gerald Murnane, and Harry Saddler listens to the world with the ears of a dog.

There's new fiction from Randa Abdel-Fattah, Beejay Silcox, Laura Elvery and Vogel Prize winner Emily O'Grady. The edition's poets include: Fiona Wright, John Kinsella, Kevin Brophy, Kate Middleton and Hazel Smith.

Meanjin Papers

THE TURNING POINT
Clementine Ford

Autumn 2018

Published 19 March 2018

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March Meanjin features the Nauru Diaries of former Royal Navy doctor Nick Martin. What he found in the Australian detention centre 'was way more traumatic than anything I'd seen in Afghanistan'. You'll also read Paul Daley on Indigenous history, statues and strange commemorations, Omar Sakr and Dennis Altman on the same sex marriage vote and Fiona Wright on Australia in three books. There's new fiction from Laura McPhee-Browne, Peter Polites, John Kinsella and Paul Dalla Rosa and a fine selection of new poetry from the likes of Stephen Edgar, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Marjorie Main and Judith Beveridge.

Meanjin Papers

THE NAURU DIARIES 
Nick Martin

Summer 2017

Published 1 December 2017

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In the December 2017 edition of Meanjin, futurist Mark Pesce argues that we are entering an age in which it will be increasingly hard to determine what, if anything, in our universe of information and sensation, is actually real; and that's not good news. For historian Rebe Taylor the discovery of a cache of Australian Aboriginal artefacts in an obscure British museum began an investigation that led back to the last years of Indigenous Tasmanians and the founding moments of the Victorian settlement; and from there to a consideration of the complex notion of 'humane colonisation'. Yassmin Abdel-Magied recounts her many, failed, attempts to leave Australia; Di Morrissey considers Australia in Three Books; Maxine Beneba Clarke is lost for words at writers' festival question time; Steven Carroll reports from his writing desk; Indigenous writer Claire G. Coleman looks at the arrival of Europeans and asks: 'just who are the nomads'…

Meanjin Papers

THE LAST DAYS OF REALITY Mark Pesce

Spring 2017

Published 18 September 2017

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In these strange times-the era of President Donald Trump and the constant contest between truth and political expedience-what is the responsibility of the intellectual, of the thinker? To sit on their hands? Or speak out and risk controversy and rebuke?

Renowned philosopher and public intellectual Raimond Gaita wrestles with this big issue in the spring edition of Meanjin and the result is a major essay, 'Truth In The Time Of Trump'.

In the same edition Katharine Murphy considers the trend toward public disengagement with politics while Guy Rundle fills notebook after notebook as France and Britain go to the polls.

Elsewhere, Anson Cameron celebrates the last days of Melbourne's somewhat notorious Gatwick Hotel; Scott Stephens charts the socially and morally destructive rise of inequality; Robyn Annear fears for a future with nothing but digital records; Eleanor Robertson ponders the many meanings of 'intersectionality'; Elle Hardy reports on urban America's war…

Meanjin Papers

THE INTELLIGENTSIA IN THE AGE OF TRUMP Raimond Gaita

Winter 2017

Published 19 June 2017

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A tinge of sadness in this June 2017 edition of Meanjin: it includes the last Commonplace column filed by John Clarke before his death in April. Published with the kind permission of his family it is a beautifully turned and now poignant piece.

Clarke's longtime home, the ABC, is the subject of the major essay in this Meanjin edition. Margaret Simons takes a long hard look at the broadcaster's past and present . and a future very much in contest. Katharine Murphy 'who'd be a politician'; Terry Barnes argues for the rise of the 'sensible centre'; and Shannon Burns writes in defence of the white working class. There's new fiction from A.S. Patric and Stephanie Bishop and as always a fine selection of new Australian poetry, including work from Judith Beveridge, Anthony Lawrence, Ben Walter and Owen Bullock.

Meanjin Papers

ARE YOU THINKING WHAT I’M THINKING? Margaret Simons

Autumn 2017

Published 15 March 2017

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The writer's life ... it's not an easy one. In the autumn issue of Meanjin Australian literary giant Frank Moorhouse describes the often-difficult path followed by those hardy souls who take 'the writer's oath'. For the man behind Days of Wine and Rage, Forty Seventeen, Dark Palace and the rest of the soon-to-be televised 'Edith Trilogy', it has been a lifelong journey studded with many books, prizes and much acclaim. Material rewards were never sought and perhaps that's for the best, for the writer's life is not a richly rewarded one. Moorhouse has some thoughts on how that might change.

Our moment in politics is nothing if not fascinating and regular Meanjin essayist Katharine Murphy wonders just where politics might take us next (and here's a clue: she's not really sure). Tasmanian writer Ben Walter walks through the singed and sodden Tarkine and finds an ancient eco-system in…

Meanjin Papers

IS WRITING A WAY OF LIFE? Frank Moorhouse

Summer 2016

Published 15 December 2016

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In the summer edition of Meanjin, Miles Franklin award winner Alexis Wright puts a challenging question: who should have the right to tell Aboriginal stories? Guy Rundle considers the Donald Trump victory and the changing state of US politics. Katharine Murphy reflects on the passing tides of parenthood, Tim Dunlop wonders what we'll all do in a world that has moved beyond work, Arnold Zable looks at the resilient beauty that can come from the depths of evil inhumanity. There's new memoir from Fiona Wright, fiction from John Kinsella and Beejay Silcox, and a fresh brace of new Australian poetry, including work by Anna Kerdijk Nicholson and Geoff Page. Plus, Commonplace: a new regular column from the legendary John Clarke.

Meanjin Papers

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TELL SOMEBODY ELSE’S STORY? Alexis Wright

Spring 2016

Published 15 September 2016

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Not the marrying kind? You're not alone. As Lauren Rosewarne reports, more the 40 percent of Australian women between 25 and 64 are single. By choice? By design? By circumstance? For better? For worse? Lauren takes a deeply personal look at a phenomenon that is quietly reshaping our world.

The facts are thinner on the ground elsewhere, especially in the world of politics and public affairs. Katharine Murphy wonders how journalism might deal with a political world in which facts and simple truth are out of favour, a theme picked up by the wonk's wonk, Greg Jericho.

That legend of Australian arts writing Patrick McCaughey casts a cold eye over the critical career of the late Robert Hughes and comes away just a little less than impressed, while Angela Smith wonders whether our major galleries are slowly but surely embracing the ethos of the circus.

Timmah Ball contemplates the rise…

Meanjin Papers

CHOOSE YOUR OWN (MISS)ADVENTURE Lauren Rosewarne

Winter 2016

Published 15 June 2016

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The Meanjin winter issue takes on the culture wars. It's an essential primer in this election season written by Melbourne academic Mark Davis, the man who brought you Gangland, the book that revealed the baby boomer cultural monopoly. Now Davis turns his attention to the shady world of cultural politics, a world dominated by race, climate, and irrational fear. Why does our public debate keep retreating to the familiar tropes of the culture wars, and why does this conversation feature so many recurring themes and characters?

Elsewhere in the issue, Clive James muses on writing, death and epitaphs ahead of the publication of his Collected Poems. Jenny Hocking traces the profound links between Australian Rules football and the Indigenous Australian game of Marngrook, while Robyn Annear marvels at her mother's hair. There's a critical essay on a favourite piece of fiction from Anna Funder, and a serious piece of research…

Meanjin Papers

AT WAR WITH OURSELVES Mark Davis