Calibre Prize

The Calibre Prize for an Outstanding Essay is open again. The winner will receive $5,000. This year, for the first time, Calibre is open to writers around the world. We also have a quick, inexpensive online entry system. Guidelines and the entry form are available on our website. Entries close on 19 January 2015. The judges on this occasion are Delia Falconer and Peter Rose, our Editor.

Calibre has been a major contributor to the renascence of the essay in this country. Past winners include Kevin Brophy, Christine Piper, and Martin Thomas. This is the ninth time we have offered Calibre. We are only able to do because of the continuing generosity of Mr Colin Golvan QC.

Our Environment issue

Danielle Clode

We’re having fun planning our first Environment issue, to be published in November, with grand support from the Bjarne K. Dahl Trust. The centre-piece is a long article by Danielle Clode, the inaugural ABR Dahl Trust Fellow. This special issue will also feature a photo essay by renowned photographer Alison Pouliot. Other contributors include Tom Griffiths, Ruth Morgan, Mark McKenna, Ian Lowe, and Bill Gammage.

To celebrate this new direction, ABR will host a launch party at Boyd on Tuesday, 11 November (6 pm, Assembly Hall). Danielle Clode will read from and discuss her Fellowship article. Everyone is most welcome. This is a free event, but reservations are essential and should be sent to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Nature Writing Prize

Like Calibre, the Nature Writing Prize – now being offered for the third time – is worth $5,000. The Nature Conservancy, which presents this prize, seeks essays of 3,000 to 5,000 words that are ‘set within an Australian Landscape and explore the author’s sense of “place”’. ABR will publish the winning essay. Entries close on 24 December, so we know what the judges – Jesse Blackadder and Robert Gray – will be doing over Christmas. Enter now via TNC's website.

A fine comic talent

Laurie Clancy (1942–2010) was an integral player in the entrenchment of ABR in its second guise. During the 1980s it was rare for an issue not to carry a review or article by Clancy; he wrote for the magazine dozens of times. Clancy published novels and criticism, but his short stories are particularly esteemed. Peter Pierce rates him as ‘one of the finest comic talents to write short fiction in Australia’. Now we have a substantial collection of the short stories: Jovial Harbinger of Doom (Michael Hanrahan Publishing, $35 pb), selected and edited by Richard Freadman. A review will follow.

Give a free gift subscription to ABR

We’re feeling generous again. New and renewing subscribers have until 31 December to give a friend a six-month subscription to ABR (print or online). You can qualify for this special offer by renewing your current subscription even before it is due to lapse. Renew for two years and give away two free subs, etc. Why not introduce a young reader or writer to ABR?

To take up this offer all you have to do is fill in the back of the flysheet that accompanies this issue, call us on (03) 9699 8822 or email us at:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (quoting your subscriber number, if you have one). We will contact the nominated recipient to establish whether he or she wants the print edition or ABR Online (thus we will need the recipient’s email address). Terms and conditions apply.

Comments on our website

Comments on our website are increasing in volume each month (we print some of them on our Letters page). But some commenters are a little confused about our online system. Here are some tips.

If you are, or have been, an ABR Online subscriber, you will need to log-in to ABR Online in order to post a comment. If you have forgotten your log-in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email us your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) at the email below: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We will review your comment and post it under your name.

Readers’ Choice Award

Our three prize-winning stories in the 2014 Jolley Prize are now free to read on our website. Readers still have until 20 October to vote in the Readers’ Choice Award. To nominate your favourite story and be in the running for our prizes, simply email us the title of the story you wish to nominate, along with your full name, address, and telephone number. The email is: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

One lucky voter will receive twenty-five Text Classics, courtesy of Text Publishing. Two voters will receive two-year complimentary subscriptions to ABR Online.