'Art and fiction is our focus this season: let’s lift our gaze, feed our spirits and gather our strengths.
'Because this year has tested us. It has opened our eyes, it has broken our hearts and it has exhausted us. Truth and lie, courage and cowardice, pride and shame. And the new lows we have seen this year, so far beneath shame that we shudder to comprehend... Systematically lying for deliberately cruel impact, and then crowing with impunity. The horrors of wars with genocidal intent. The violence of unrelenting colonisation.' (Editorial introduction)
'In considering the Meanjin Paper for this edition, we have dived deep into the archives of Meanjin, seeking to honour the voices of those that have come before. Through our reading of the archives, we understand that many of the issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have remained the same for close to 45 years: the failures of government policy and funding that directly impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, the devastating impacts of racism, and the social issues that continue to harm our people such as poor health outcomes and suicide. Through our reading, we have also found that our strengths remain the same, a fact that is deeply heartening to us-our families, the care for our children, our culture and its resurgence, and our self-determination and vision for our futures.' (Publication summary)
(Publication summary)
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'Many things play on the mind of the new editor at an old magazine. Top priority: don’t let the thing perish on your watch.
'And here we are with a new edition of Meanjin, the last of its 81st year, and the last of my editorship. The good news is that there will be another edition next March, this one prepared by the magazine’s new—twelfth—editor, Esther Anatolitis.' (Jonathan Green, Editorial introduction)
Australia is the fourth biggest country in the world for QAnon social media content and discussion, and its fans are a wide ranging group, from celebrity chef Pete Evans to federal MP's like George Christensen. Margaret Simons wonders what brings them all together, why ideas like the theories promoted by QAnon have appeal and how social media and the collapse of much traditional journalism has fuelled the breakdown of a coherent idea of 'the public' Plus:Omar Sakr, Mark McKenna, Declan Fry, Elizabeth Flux, Paul Daley, Rodney Hall, Yen-Rong Wong, Maria Tumarkin, Gregory Day, Shakira Hussein, Paul Barratt, Steve Dow and Australia In Three Books from Giselle Au-Nhien NguyenNew fiction from Briohny Doyle, Rose Michael, Melanie Cheng and Dawn NguyenNew poetry from Shey Marque, Steve Brock, Dzenana Vucic, Madeleine Dale, Diane Fahey, Toby Fitch, Christian Bok and more. Reviews from Timmah Ball, Andy Jackson, Darlene Silva Soberano, Max Easton, Claire Cao, and Dion…' (Publication abstract)
'In December's 80th birthday edition of Meanjin, writers address the edition's theme: The Next 80 Years.
'The issue opens with reflective contributions from all of Meanjin's living past editors. Tara June Winch and Behrouz Boochani offer a conversational meditation on time and the very notion of a future. Bruce Pascoe writes on the strange relationship non-Indigenous Australians have with trees, and wonders when we will realise that the forest is a friend. Jennifer Mills encounters ... herselves ... in a future archive. Peter Doherty sees a future world of worries-many of them viral-but settles on hope and the necessity of individual responsibility. Jess Hill wonders whether existing models of policing are fit for purpose in countering domestic abuse. Michael Mohammed Ahmad writes on whiteness and the idea of 'real Australians'. Jane Rawson looks at dramatic changes in Australian nature and wonders 'who belongs here?' And Raimond Gaita writes on the moral challenges that have been presented by Covid19 and the challenge to our future presented by Black Lives Matter and the quest for Indigenous sovereignty.' (Edition summary)
'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'. ' (Publication introduction)
'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.' (Publication summary)
'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?' (Introduction)