Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 Picking up the Pieces: The Nambour Chronicle and the Construction of a Regional Reading Culture, 1920–50
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Given that the Sunshine Coast and its hinterland have been, at least for a time, the haunt of several of several eminent Australian writers — the Palmers, Dark, Herbert, Astley, Wright, Cato, Williamson and Carey, to name a few — it seemed worth asking whether the principal, and for most of the twentieth century the only, newspaper servicing the region since 1903 — the Nambour Chronicle and the North Coast Advertiser — was part of a literary culture to which these writers felt they belonged and were contributing in the first half of the century. If not, why not? And if so, what kinds of contributions did it make to that culture? The tentative finding is that while the Chronicle did not make the kinds of direct, ‘homegrown’ contributions that some other metropolitan and provincial newspapers did, it maintained a literary presence and function by means of a regular diet of imported features, and by its particularly close and consistent relationship with the Nambour Town Library (and also, less consistently, with various School of Arts libraries in the district). The continuing connection between these two Nambour institutions — the Chronicle and the library — was personal and familial as well as civic in nature, and clearly suited the literary demands and expectations of a highly dispersed community that found its unity and identity by other means.' (Abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Queensland Review vol. 24 no. 2 December 2017 12338930 2017 periodical issue

    'This issue of Queensland Review takes as its focus the literature of the Sunshine Coast and its hinterland. Under a conceptually rigorous regime, it might be deemed necessary to interrogate some of these terms closely: both ‘literature’ and ‘the Sunshine Coast’ are both, for different reasons, potentially contestable notions — as also, in this context, is the word ‘of’: does it mean ‘from’ or ‘about’ or both? Our authors have elected not to contest these matters in the abstract, but rather to adopt broadly inclusive definitions of all three terms — and, for that matter, of ‘the hinterland’. Our cover image does something similar. An unattributed colour photograph taken nearly half a century ago, looking westward from the northern tip of Bribie Island (or thereabouts) to the Glasshouse Mountains, it captures — rather cunningly given the proximity of human habitation just outside the frame — something of the primeval beauty of both the littoral and the hinterland, a recurrent theme in this collection.' (Editorial)

    2017
    pg. 30 -318
Last amended 12 Dec 2017 13:31:40
30 -318 Picking up the Pieces: The Nambour Chronicle and the Construction of a Regional Reading Culture, 1920–50small AustLit logo Queensland Review
Subjects:
  • Sunshine Coast, South East Queensland, Queensland,
  • 1920-1950
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