y separately published work icon Meniscus periodical  
Note: Gail Pittaway (NZ)
Issue Details: First known date: 2013... 2013 Meniscus
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Issues

y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 12 no. 1 2024 28176923 2024 periodical issue

'Welcome to Meniscus volume 12, issue 1. We weren’t sure, twelve years ago, if we’d be able to get a new literary journal up and running, and thanks to our contributors and readers, it has after all been possible. Thank you for making our work (a) possible and (b) so rewarding.

'Each set of new submissions seems to illuminate the concerns of the moment / month / year; and the works of prose and poetry submitted to this issue of Meniscus shimmer with a sense of change. This seems appropriate, since many of them were submitted at the turn of the year, and are being published at the turn of the season, but we suspect they also gesture toward a broader sense of alertness to current global events, shaded with the memory of both delights and griefs from the past. Not that it’s all doom and gloom; a number of pieces included in this issue of the journal have tongue firmly in cheek, or are actively humorous or wry. Writers look at the world, after all, and reflect on it, and in the voices of these writers – who are located right across the globe (a majority of them based in Australia or the USA, but with representation from every continent except Antarctica) – we see the many perspectives that can be brought to bear by people skilled in observing, thinking, and crafting literary works. 

'​We are trialling a different organisation of the issue, on this occasion. Traditionally, the works in Meniscus have been set in alphabetical order, by family name; for this issue we have attempted to find threads, patterns and moods, and to organise the pieces along these lines. We trust you enjoy reading them as much as we did; and can linger over the pieces and taste their flavours.'  (Jen Webb and Deb Wain Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 11 no. 2 2023 27193078 2023 periodical issue poetry

'Welcome to Meniscus volume 11, issue 2. We weren’t sure, eleven years ago, if we’d be able to get a new literary journal up and running, but thanks to our contributors and readers, it has after all happened. Thank you for making our work (a) possible and (b) so rewarding.

'For this issue, there was a very large submissions pile, both poetry and prose. This means that far too much quality work was, necessarily, rejected. The principles for selecting about 60 poems and 18 prose works out of over 1,000 submissions required us to make very difficult decisions. The aim was to produce an issue with a balance of style, voice, and content, and ensuring we include some new writers alongside well-established voices.' (Jen Webb and Ginna Brock: Editorial introduction)

y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 11 no. 1 2023 26429161 2023 periodical issue

'This is something of a bumper edition, filled with excellent works in prose and in poetry. We found it a very powerful work to edit, with a definite trend toward writing that engages with and/or critiques the contemporary world.' (Editorial introduction)

y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 10 no. 2 December 2022 25615505 2022 periodical issue

'This year marks our tenth volume and in this edition for the anniversary year we have welcomed writers from USA, Canada, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and UK, to contribute to our initial and ongoing aim of offering Meniscus as an international journal. This issue has been edited at the bottom of the world by two New Zealanders, Sandra Arnold and Gail Pittaway, who took on the challenge of working through nearly 600 submissions. Though hard work, it was a joy to see the range and scope of themes and forms. It’s also been encouraging to see several of the writers who have offered work in previous volumes continuing to submit work to our literary journal, through to 2022. Looking back at those earlier issues it is clear that not only has Meniscus grown in volume, with increasing numbers of writers added to later issues, it has also grown in geographical scope and reach. We proudly publish several authors for the first time and encourage those whose efforts couldn’t make it to this volume to keep sending in work and to persevere.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 10 no. 1 2022 24777956 2022 periodical issue

'Of course it’s anticipatory to talk about the post-pandemic; all around the world, it seems, are reports that we have entered the post-COVID era, while locally we recognise that we might have outrun the pandemic, the disease itself still lingers. Moreover, its effects – on personal lives, on individual and national incomes, on the health and education systems which are still staggering toward recovery, and on the profoundly damaged art sector, which did so much to support wellbeing during the lockdowns – continue to frame our lives.

'The lateness of this issue of Meniscus is directly related to the COVID/ post-COVID effects; the editors have been struggling to find enough time to give proper attention to the submissions, and a number of the poems and stories included here address COVID, directly or indirectly. Other poems and stories pick up on ongoing issues of racism, climate change, gender relations, and the existential quo vadis story that is such an enduring theme in literary writing.' (Deb Wain and Jen Webb Editorial introduction)

y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 9 no. 2 2021 23651903 2021 periodical issue

'This issue of Meniscus is full of variety, with contributions probing issues connected to identity, perception, intertextuality, travel, ethnicity, interpersonal relations, language, authoritarianism, power, writing, the pandemic and much more besides. From our perspectives as editors, it is a satisfying issue because it makes a significant contribution to the complex discussions all societies need after two years of COVID-19—which have challenged many individuals and institutions, including governments. Such discussions include perspectives on how people choose to live and the ethical and moral dimensions of human conduct, and various pieces in this issue relate to such issues.' (Editorial Comment introduction)

y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 9 no. 1 June 2021 22098549 2021 periodical issue poetry

'We are not only delighted, but also relieved, to see this new issue of Meniscus emerge into the world. As contributors and readers will know, we are several weeks behind schedule, which has caused the editors some anxiety. The tardiness is, of course, an effect of the global pandemic; and while we in Australia and New Zealand have escaped most of the devastation, there have been bollards in our roads too. We are very grateful for the kindness offered by so many contributors, and their recognition that the world no longer operates according to the standards of business-as-usual.' (Editorial introduction)

y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 8 no. 2 2020 20955098 2020 periodical issue

'During this time of global crisis, when the COVID-19 pandemic has affected most people in the world in profound ways, creative writing is increasingly important—not only as a form of self-expression, and sometimes recovery, but as a way of articulating significant concerns that belong to the various communities the writers inhabit.

The works in the December 2020 issue of Meniscus range over various issues, many of them connected to personal feelings and relationships and particular domestic and quotidian occasions and situations. They explore ways in which people understand their connections to, and alienations from others and their relationships to received ideas and the complexities of language.

'I recommend this Meniscus issue to you and the diverse and bracing stories and poems it contains.'  (Paul Hetherington, Editorial)

y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 8 no. 1 2020 19262139 2020 periodical issue 'This issue of Meniscus has been framed by two events, one global and one personal for one of the co-editors. As writers were submitting pieces for the current issue, the COVID-19 virus was at the periphery of our consciousness but, as the closing date came and April launch date approached, it became apparent that these were no ordinary times and all of those involved in bringing the issue to the world were themselves caught in the tension of maintaining standards in our ‘daytime’ work, while working from home and under containment. Our titular image and explanation of Meniscus, of ‘how surfaces, curves, tension and openness interact ... the way in which the surface of the water features, and the uncertainty of the water’s containment, seems to analogise the excitement and anxiety inherent in creative practice, and the delicate balance between possibility and impossibility’, became a reality for our daily lives as well as our own creativity. (Gail Pittaway, Jen Webb : Editorial introduction)
y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 7 no. 2 2019 18450065 2019 periodical issue
y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 7 no. 1 April 2019 18333538 2019 periodical issue

'When the Australasian Association of Writing Programs decided in 2013 to establish a literary journal, those of us who took on the role of editors settled on the name ‘Meniscus’ and drafted the explanatory statement that is now located in the ‘About Us’ section of the website:

Meniscus is named for the curve that forms at the top surface of a container of liquid. The curve is caused by surface tension, which not only holds the fluid in, but also allows the passage of objects through the surface. It creates uncertainty for anyone attempting a precise measurement because of the parallax effect. The combination of tension, openness and uncertainty can be read as an analogy for creative writing. 

'While Sandra Arnold and I were working on this issue, the shattering news of the mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand emerged in the media, and this grim, heartbreaking evidence of xenophobia, hate speech and cultural supremacy coloured the remaining time we spent selecting, editing and preparing the issue for publication. It also hardened our resolve, as editors, to remain firmly committed to publishing creative works that are open to differences and possibilities (like the meniscus itself, which affords both a border and permeability); that allow nuance and complexity (avoiding any ‘precise measurement’), and are able to express, and even celebrate, the ‘tension, openness and uncertainty’ that are so much part of human society.' (Jen Webb, Editorial introduction)

y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 6 no. 2 November 2018 18328249 2018 periodical issue 'A literary journal only slowly establishes itself, finding out what it is, and for whom it exists. Each journal has its own accent, its own diction, and though the audiences of both contributors and readers overlap significantly, each journal nonetheless will find its own community. Meniscus is now reaching the age where it is pretty sure about who and what it is, thanks to the generosity of our contributors, the input of our guest editors, and the range of communities in which it is finding its feet. In this, as in previous years, there are both familiar names and voices, and writers we’d not met before. As in previous years, the contributors come from across the world, from a range of linguistic and cultural backgrounds, from both the emerging and the very established, and from both the very young and the very mature. As always, we are delighted to include in this issue a number of writers whose work explores difference – be that of voice, of perspective, of form, of culture, or any other differences. Each work has its own discrete qualities, and in each case the editors were impressed with a freshness in the voice, the quality of image, the narrative traction, and the capacity of the work to make us look at the world from a different point of view.' (Editorial introduction)
y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 6 no. 1 April 2018 15010895 2018 periodical issue
y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 5 no. 2 October Jen Webb (editor), Gail Pittaway (editor), 2017 15002984 2017 periodical issue
y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 5 no. 1 June Alice Beecham (editor), 2017 14997951 2017 periodical issue
y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 4 no. 2 November Paul Munden (editor), Gail Pittaway (editor), 2016 14995202 2016 periodical issue
y separately published work icon Meniscus Beyond the Divide vol. 4 no. 1 May Dallas J. Baker (editor), Chris Kerr (editor), 2016 14994032 2016 periodical issue
y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 3 no. 2 August Shane Strange (editor), 2015 9023351 2015 periodical issue poetry short story
y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 3 no. 1 April Liz Colbert (editor), 2015 9022284 2015 periodical issue poetry short story
y separately published work icon Meniscus vol. 2 no. 2 December 2014 9002573 2014 periodical issue poetry short story
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