| Meanjin | |
| Editor: | Esther Anatolitis |
| Founder: | Clem Christesen |
| Publisher: | Melbourne University Publishing |
| Country: | Australia |
| Based: | Melbourne |
| Issn: | 0815-953X |
| Oclc: | 3972868 |
Meanjin, formerly Meanjin Papers and Meanjin Quarterly, is an Australian literary magazine with a reputation for democratic left-of-centre politics, as against the right-wing stance of its rival Quadrant.[1] Established in 1940 in Brisbane, it moved to Melbourne in 1945 and is as of 2008 an imprint of Melbourne University Publishing.
The magazine was established in December 1940[2] in Brisbane, by Clem Christesen[3] as Meanjin Papers. The name is derived from the Turrbal word for land on which the city of Brisbane is located.[4]
It moved to Melbourne in 1945 at the invitation of the University of Melbourne. 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.[5]
The magazine was renamed Meanjin in 1947, then to Meanjin Quarterly in 1961, and became Meanjin again in 1976.[6] It includes poetry, fiction, essays, memoirs, and other forms of writing, and also produces podcasts.[7]
Since 2008 Meanjin is published as an imprint of Melbourne University Publishing.[8]
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, and Les Murray. Special issues have been devoted to Joseph Furphy and Vance Palmer, among others.[1]
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 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 Mudbarra) were guest editors of the journal's first-ever all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander edition, Meanjin 82.3 Spring 2023.[9]