Meanjin (), formerly Meanjin Papers and Meanjin Quarterly, is one of Australia's longest-running literary magazines. Established in 1940 in Brisbane, it moved to Melbourne in 1945, and has been an editorially independent imprint of Melbourne University Publishing. A print edition is produced quarterly, while it is updated continuously online. Publication of Meanjin will cease at the end of 2025, but its website and an online archive will be retained.
History
Origin
Established in Brisbane by
Clem Christesen in 1940 as a literary magazine titled
Meanjin Papers, and named for the
Turrbal language word for land on which the city of Brisbane is located.
In its first issue, released for Christmas 1940,
Christesen introduced it
:Literature and art, poetry and drama do not spring into being at the word of command. Their life is a continuous process growing within itself, and its suppression is death. Therefore we determined to commence publication of the Meanjin Papers
Its sister magazine
Angry Penguins in its issue no.4 gave a qualified commendation: "We Approve: ‘‘Meanjin Papers," edited by Clem Christesen in Queensland. Here the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."
Melbourne
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 Palmer 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.]
The magazine was renamed Meanjin in 1947, then to Meanjin Quarterly in 1961, and became Meanjin again in 1976.[ Australian Poets and Their Works, by William Wilde. Oxford University Press, 1996]
In 1971, the magazine was selling approximately 2,000 copies of each issue.
Since 2008 Meanjin has been published as an editorially independent imprint of Melbourne University Publishing.
Description
Meanjin was one of Australia's longest-running literary magazines.
A scholarly, peer-reviewed journal, it "managed to be serious and playful at once". Subjects included philosophy,
Cessation
In September 2025, Melbourne University Publishing announced a controversial decision
Notable contributors
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, Frank Moorhouse, Sarah Holland-Batt, Ellen van Neerven, and Les Murray. Special issues have been devoted to Joseph Furphy and Vance Palmer, among others. (1994). 019553381X, Oxford University Press. 019553381X
Editors
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 writer teaching at the University of Wollongong and co-editor of Australia Canada Studies. During Esther Anatolitis's editorship, in 2023 Eugenia Flynn (Larrakia people and Tiwi people) and Bridget Caldwell-Bright (Jingle and Mudburra) were guest editors of the journal's first-ever all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander edition, Meanjin 82.3, Spring 2023.
Poetry editors
Footnotes
Further reading
External links
