Esther Anatolitis (editor), Meanjin Vol 83 Nº 4 (Summer 2024) (links are to the Meanjin website: some but not all of them are available to non-subscribers)
I’m usually at least three months behind in my journal reading, so I don’t expect the journals to comment on the day’s headlines. So it was nice serendipity, on the day I read a piece in the Guardian about bulldozers moving in on a tent city in Moreton Bay Council Area, to read ‘The tent village at Musgrave Park‘ by Lillian O’Neill, which addresses a similar fleeting community in south-east Queensland with curiosity, empathy and (this is Meanjin after all) erudition.
Other essays have a more general but no less pointed timeliness:
‘A university, not a corporation‘ by George Williams, Chancellor of Western Sydney University, puts the case summarised so well in its title – a case certainly needed here even if less obviously than in Trump’s USA
‘Smooth fade‘ by Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn starts with the recent declaration that a particularly boring fish is extinct and develops into a passionate meditation on the climate emergency.
Meanjin has a number of regular features:
Even before the contents page, there’s ‘The Meanjin Paper’, an essay by a First Nations writer: it this issue it’s ‘Sing for the Black: From Act to Treaty‘, in which singer-songwriter Joe Geia talks bout his art, particularly his show From Rations to Wages to Treaty
‘Australia in three books‘: Shakira Hussein discusses three books about Meanjin/Brisbane – by David Malouf, Melissa Lukashenko and Ellen van Neerven
Interview: ‘All colour and light’, an interview with Gerald Murnane, eccentric and elusive as ever
‘The Year In…’ This issue has ‘… Poetry‘, not a survey, but discussion of a very few favourites by Graham Akhurst & Shastra Deo.
There are short fictions, memoir, book reviews and poetry. To name just one of each:
‘Your heart sir‘ by Grace Yee is in the poetry section, but to my taste it’s the best short story in the journal, about the sudden death of an old man and the dementia of his widow
‘Seven Snakes‘ by Carrie Tiffany isn’t in the memoir section, but it is a kind of memoir, in which the author, a park ranger, tells of seven encounters with snakes and one, more toxic, with a male manager.
‘How Novel is the Novel Prize?‘ by Maks Sipowicz, a review of It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken and Tell by Jonathan Buckley, joint winners of the 2022 Novel Prize, includes reflections on the function of prizes and awards in the literary ecosystem – and wonders if perhaps the prize should have gone to books of less obvious appeal
‘@ClanC #overflow‘, a lovely parody of Banjo Paterson written by Ian Simmons, whose bio says he ‘has been writing bad teenage poetry for almost five decades’, introduces some much-appreciated levity.
There’s much more in the journal’s 191 pages. I’ll give the last word to Maks Sipowicz. He was referring to literary prizes. I think the words apply just as well to literary journals:
As readers, we can only collectively benefit from the spotlight falling onto more challenging texts
I wrote this blog post on the cloud-covered, windy land of Gadigal and Wangal of the Eora nation. I acknowledge their Elders past present and emerging, and gratefully acknowledge their care for this land for millennia. I welcome any First Nations readers of this blog.
I almost missed the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards this year. I missed the announcement of the short lists altogether, and only realised that the awards were last night because the Sydney Writers’ Festival is about to start and I think of the NSWPLAs as the first cab off the festival rank.
Here I am making up for the omission. Sadly I’ve read only one of the books, and seen a production of only one script, none of the winners.
Last night, the awards ceremony was live streamed. As always on a Monday, I was busy being grandfather, so I tuned in late. It’s all on YouTube and you can even watch it by clicking the image below. The ceremony begins with didjeridoo and Welcome to Country by Uncle Brendan Kerin, who spoke eloquently about the meaning of the word ‘Country’ in this context. After introductory speeches from librarians and politicians, the presentation of awards by Senior Judge Bernadette Brennan and Library Chair Bob Debus begins at about 29 minutes.
Here are the shortlists in the order of announcements, with links to the judges’ comments. The winners are first in each list, in bold:
Dr Tracy Westerman appeared on video, speaking from Perth: ‘As someone who doesn’t consider themselves to be a real writer, as a kid from the Pilbara who had a pretty unorthodox education through distance education, being awarded for my writing feels, frankly, a little bit surreal.’ She went on to talk about mental wellbeing: it ‘should never be just for the privileged, and Jilya sheds light on the reality that it continues to be … because of a one-size-fits-all, monocultural approach to mental health.’
Nam Le, also on video, spoke against a background of a bookshelf piled high with books. He thanked many people and dedicated the award to his father, who ‘has been an engine of multiculturalism in this country’.
Lorraine Coppin, CEO of Juluwarlu Group, also spoke on video. She and her husband have spent years documenting Yindjibarndi stories – the graphic novel format is a way of making the history accessible to young people.
Glenn Shea appeared in person! He is a member of the Stolen Generations. The play’s story comes from community. The question it asks is how do we plant seeds for our young people to shift and shape their decision-making about work lives and community. He shouted out La Mama theatre among many others.
Betty Roland Prize for Scriptwriting ($30,000)
Inside, Charles Williams (Simpatico Films, Macgowan Films, Never Sleep Pictures)
Went Up the Hill, Samuel Van Grinsven and Jory Anast (Causeway Films)
Charles Williams was also in the room. He started out with a remark that must have struck a chord with many people in the movie industry: ‘I usually identify as a director more than as a writer, but I spend a lot of my life writing and not much directing.’ He quoted Charlie Kaufman: ‘A writer is someone for whom writing is harder than it is for other people,’ and noted in passing that Kaufman stole the line from Thomas Mann.
Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature ($30,000)
The Invocations, Krystal Sutherland (Penguin Random House Australia)
Emma Lord said among other things that everything she writes is for her daughter, even though she is too young for the books. She acknowledged the courage of her publishers who accepted a book with a pandemic in it during a pandemic. Following a developing theme of the evening, she said her mother shared the award.
Translation Prize ($30,000)
The Trial of Anna Thalberg, Eduardo Sangarcía, translated from Spanish by Elizabeth Bryer (Restless Books)
You Glow in the Dark, Liliana Colanzi, translated from Spanish by Chris Andrews (New Directions)
The Son’s Story, Marie-Hélène Lafon, translated from French by Stephanie Smee (Mountain Leopard Press)
Elizabeth Bryer accepted by video. She said she had decided to wind back her translation practice because she couldn’t see a way to make it viable. This award changes that, and means she can take on a project she had been thinking about – to set up a mentorship wth an emerging translator who is a person of colour or a heritage speaker.
Hasib Hourani described rock flight as intended to explore both historical and speculative acts of liberation in Palestine. ‘Throwing a rock is one kind of protest. A book is another.’
Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction ($40, 000)
Deep Water, James Bradley (Hamish Hamilton Australia)
James Bradley revealed that winners had been instructed to speak for less than a minute. Among the many thankyous, he thanked Ashley Hay who read every draft. With a nod to W. H. Auden, he said that though it seems like books don’t make anything happen, his experience with this book has shown that this isn’t actually the case: ‘Books change minds, and by changing minds they can change the world, and at the moment that matters more than it has ever mattered before.’
Lucia Osborne-Crowley was another video appearance. Before she made the necessary thankyous she noted the importance of writers speaking up for Palestinians who are being subjected to genocide and war crimes. She thanked the survivor community who voted for her – the book is for and about and by survivors of sexual violence and child sexual violence.
Special Award
This award went to Liminal. The award was accepted by founding editor Leah Jing McIntosh. Evidently aware than many people watching the awards or reading about them might not have herd of Liminal, she began by explaining that it is ‘a project driven by the desire to make visible the unacknowledged structures of racism that so dehumanise all of us.’ She went on, ‘We work towards new ways of thinking, of seeing, of being in the world. That is to say, we work together towards a better future. We know we cannot do it alone.’
Book of the Year ($10,000)
36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem, Nam Le (Scribner Australia). Ben Ball from Scribner Australia read a speech written by Nam Le. He expanded on his earlier dedication to his father, and spoke interestingly and powerfully about multiculturalism. I won’t try to summarise his speech here out of respect for his intellectual property. I hope it’s published somewhere. At heart it was a warning against complacency.
The twin shadows of Gaza and Trump were never far from the stage, and repudiations of all they stood for were frequent. And what a reading list has emerged from the evening, even if only of the winners.
Me fail? I fly! 