Open Letter

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**The ABR Podcast**

Released every Thursday, the ABR podcast features our finest reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary.

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‘Where is Nancy?’ Paradoxes in the pursuit of freedom

by Marilyn Lake

This week on The ABR Podcast, Marilyn Lake reviews The Art of Power: My story as America’s first woman Speaker of the House by Nancy Pelosi. The Art of Power, explains Lake, tells how Pelosi, ‘a mother of five and a housewife from California’, became the first woman Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Marilyn Lake is a Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Listen to Marilyn Lake’s ‘Where is Nancy?’ Paradoxes in the pursuit of freedom’, published in the November issue of ABR.

Recent episodes:

An Open Letter on the ABC

by The Editors •

20 July 2018

ABR shares many Australians’ concerns about the health and viability of the ABC. The threats are myriad and sustained. Funding cuts, political interference, and frequent taunts from News Corp have weakened the organisation. Recently, the Liberal Party’s Federal Council voted to privatise the organisation. This would surely spell the beginning of the end for the national broadcaster. We take things for granted in the Lucky Country, but can we really be sure that the ABC will be around in 2028 to celebrate its centenary – searching, unfettered, well resourced? More and more people think not and have begun to lobby government. ABR supports them wholeheartedly. Meanwhile, one hundred writers, artists, commentators, and public figures have signed our Open Letter in support of the ABC. ... (read more)

An open letter on same sex marriage

by Australian Book Review •

September 2017, no. 394

Confirmation of the legality of the marriage equality postal survey by the High Court of Australia prompted Australian Book Review to invite a number of writers, artists, directors, lawyers, commentators and public figures to sign an open letter on the subject. The response was positive and immediate. The open letter, which appears in our October print issue, is intended as a respectful contribution from some of the most prominent people in the arts in Australia.

... (read more)

Open letter to Alex Byrne (NSW State Librarian & Chief Executive)

by Evelyn Juers •

20 February 2014

Dear Alex,

You invited us. We – Geordie Williamson, David Malouf and I, representing over 3000 signatories of the Petition to save the Mitchell Library Reading Room (MLRR) and calling for a public meeting t ...

Open letter concerning Fairfax

by The Editors •

From the Editor’s Desk

There is, understandably, much umbrage and anxiety in Canberra following Fairfax’s decision to remove its literary editor at the Canberra Times and to rely exclusively on literary reviews and commentaries emanating from Fairfax’s two main broadsheets, The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald – broadsheets that will themselves beco ...