Meanjin

For other uses, see Meanjin (disambiguation).

Meanjin (/miˈændʒɪn/), formerly Meanjin Papers and Meanjin Quarterly, is one of Australia's longest-running literary magazines. Established in 1940 in Brisbane, it moved to Melbourne in 1945 and as of 2008 is an editorially independent imprint of Melbourne University Publishing. A print edition is produced quarterly, while it is updated continuously online.

Meanjin

Editor	Esther Anatolitis
Publisher	Melbourne University Publishing
Founder	Clem Christesen
First issue	December 1940 (1940-12)
Country	Australia
Based in	Melbourne
Website	meanjin.com.au
ISSN	0815-953X
OCLC	3972868

History

The magazine was established in December 1940^[1] in Brisbane, by Clem Christesen^[2][3] as Meanjin Papers. The name is derived from the Turrbal/Yagara word for land on which the city of Brisbane is located.^[4][5]

It moved to Melbourne in 1945 at the invitation of the University of Melbourne.^[6] Artist and patron Lina Bryans opened the doors of her Darebin Bridge House to the Meanjin group: then Vance and Nettie Palmer, Rosa and Dolia Ribush, Jean Campbell, Laurie Thomas, and Alan McCulloch. There they joined the moderates in the Contemporary Art Society (Norman Macgeorge, Clive Stephen, Isobel Tweddle and Rupert Bunny, Sybil Craig, Guelda Pyke, Elma Roach, Ola Cohn and Madge Freeman, and George Bell). Bryans created a free circle and was able to give the liberal, conservative modernist position in Melbourne a more vital character and a freer base than it would otherwise have had.^[7]

The magazine was renamed Meanjin in 1947, then to Meanjin Quarterly in 1961, and became Meanjin again in 1976.^[8][9]

Since 2008 Meanjin is published as an editorially independent imprint of Melbourne University Publishing.^[6]

Description

Meanjin is one of Australia's longest-running literary magazines.^[10][11][a] For the first two years it was issued on a bi-monthly basis, and later in 1944 was published as a larger quarterly work with approximately 4,000 circulation.^[15]

It is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal, which "manag[es] to be serious and playful at once". It includes philosophy,^[16] poetry, fiction, essays, memoirs, and other forms of writing, and also produces podcasts.^[17][6] A print edition is produced quarterly, while the online edition is updated on a daily basis.^[18]

Notable contributors

The magazine has been the vehicle for important new work by Australian writers A. D. Hope, James McAuley, Douglas Stewart, Judith Wright, Patrick White, Randolph Stow, Joan London, Frank Moorhouse, Sarah Holland-Batt, Ellen van Neerven, and Les Murray. Special issues have been devoted to Joseph Furphy and Vance Palmer, among others.^[19]

Editors

• 1940–1974: Clem Christesen
• 1974–1982: Jim Davidson
• 1982–1987: Judith Brett
• 1987–1994: Jenny Lee
• 1994–1998: Christina Thompson
• 1998–2002: Stephanie Holt
• 2002–2008 Ian Britain
• 2008–2011 Sophie Cunningham
• 2011–2012 Sally Heath
• 2013–2015 Zora Sanders
• 2015–2022 Jonathan Green^[6][20]
• 2022–present Esther Anatolitis^[21]

During Christina Thompson's editorship, in 1995 Cassandra Pybus was guest editor for Issue 2, titled O Canada. It features both Canadian and Australian writing including an essay by Gerry Turcotte, a Canadian writer teaching at the University of Wollongong and co-editor of Australia Canada Studies. During Esther Anatolitis's editorship, in 2023 Eugenia Flynn (Larrakia and Tiwi) and Bridget Caldwell-Bright (Jingle and Mudburra) were guest editors of the journal's first-ever all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander edition, Meanjin 82.3, Spring 2023.^[22]

Poetry editors

• mid-to-late 1970s: Kris Hemensley
• 1979–1982: Judith Rodriguez
• 1987–1994: Philip Mead
• 1994–1997: Laurie Duggan
• 1998: Brian Henry
• 1998–2000: Coral Hull
• 2000–2005: Peter Minter
• 2005–2015: Judith Beveridge
• 2015–2023: Bronwyn Lea
• 2023–present: Jeanine Leane

Footnotes

1. Hermes, published by the University of Sydney Union, was established in 1886,^[12] but has not been published continuously;^[13] Southerly was first published in September 1939.^[14]