Hidden Author
Each year we honour the great Australian poet Peter Porter (1929–2010) through our poetry competition – and in the process generate much new poetry. This year we received almost 800 poems in the highly alliterative Peter Porter Poetry Prize. This is almost twice the number we received last year – a measure of the growing popularity of the Porter Prize and, one suspects, of the recent and mos ... (read more)
Enter the Jolley Prize
Exponents of short fiction will have until 31 May to enter the ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. This year’s prize money is divided three ways. The winner will again receive $5000; the two place-getters will receive $2000 and $1000. Last year, the inaugural Jolley Prize attracted almost 1300 entries.
Multiple entries are fine. A separate entry form is neede ... (read more)
Oz Lit at Melbourne University
Dear Editor,
The English program at the University of Melbourne has offered courses on Australian literature every year since 1982, when it was first introduced as a full seminar subject. Stephanie Guest’s article in last month’s issue of ABR, ‘Oz Lit in the Moot Court Room: Finding Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne’, mistakenly rep ... (read more)
ABR Fellowship news
Our largest and strongest field to date vied for the latest Australian Book Review Sidney Myer Fund Fellowship, worth $5000. The four judges – Tony Birch, Helen Brack, Colin Golvan, and Peter Rose – chose Sydney writer, critic, and anthologist Felicity Plunkett. Dr Plunkett will examine the music of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu and its reception. Her profile of this ... (read more)
Before Manning Clark
Dear Editor,
Norman Etherington’s lively review of Mark McKenna’s book on Manning Clark repeats the claim that Clark was ‘the first academic (in 1946) to offer a full-length course in Australian history’ (December 2011–January 2012). R.M. Crawford, the professor who appointed Clark to give the 1946 course, had himself done so in the previous year to twenty or so st ... (read more)
Australian Book Review Fellowships are intended to reward outstanding Australian writers, to enhance ABR through the publication of long-form journalism, and to advance the magazine’s commitment to ideas and critical debate. Some Fellowships are themed - others are not.
ABR Fellowships are funded by the magazine's Patrons and in some cases by philanthropic foundations.
We look for stylish and ... (read more)
Reference vision
By year’s end, it’s not easy to become giddy-headed about our daily cache of new publications, but one book from Cambridge University Press that turned our heads is The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture, edited by Philip Goad and Julie Willis. Immense in scale and conception – with 200 contributors, 500 images, and 1000 entries – this will be an indispensabl ... (read more)
Whither anthropology?
Dear Editor,
Emma Kowal’s review of my book (November 2011) is by and large a generous one, and yet it comes to some conclusions that I must reject. My view is not the same as the ‘anti-separatists’, because, as I make clear in my discussion, they do not maintain one view. Some of them are neo-liberals. Others are not. Among the writers I discuss in the releva ... (read more)
Why do you write?
Storytelling in all its forms is one way of having something curious, strange, and comforting to say to others and ourselves when we are faced with the malaise of the real.
Are you a vivid dreamer?
... (read more)