Axed literary magazine Meanjin finds a new home after its axing

The Australian iconic literary magazine Meanjin will return to Queensland, 80 years after it relocated to Melbourne.

The news was announced by the magazine’s new custodian Queensland University of Technology which has pledged to appoint an editorial board to guarantee Meanjin’s independence, values and standards and begin a national search for a new editor. No date has been given for its next issue.

In September last year, Melbourne University Press announced it would cease publishing the prestigious magazine, a stalwart in the literary scene. It counted many of Australia’s best writers as contributors including Helen Garner, Peter Carey, Michelle De Kretser, Alexis Wright and David Malouf.

Meanjin is the Indigenous word for Brisbane, the magazine originally founded in that city in 1940 to promote a “healthy climate of opinion and literary activity”. It moved to the University of Melbourne in 1945, and in 2008 became an imprint of Melbourne University Publishing.

On announcing the closure of the magazine last year, MUP chair Professor Warren Bebbington had said the decision was made by the MUP board on purely financial grounds.

In a statement issued Wednesday Bebbington said the MUP had received approaches to acquire Meanjin from a variety of organisations in recent months, but “QUT’s understanding of the journal’s legacy surpassed those of the other expressions of interest received”.

“The board is delighted Meanjin will continue, and in the hands of a university so clearly alert to the nature of the custodianship MUP had fulfilled for it for so long.”

The quarterly magazine’s final issue – under editor Esther Anatolitis and deputy Eli McLean – was published in December. The team had already put that issue to bed when the decision was made and were made redundant in September.

As well as income from subscriptions, the magazine had received funding from the University of Melbourne, Creative Australia and the Copyright Agency.

Previous editors of the magazine had for decades worried about its precarious financial situation, fearing its closure.

QUT said it would take time to “thoughtfully re-establish the journal in Queensland and consider how to most effectively reinvigorate Meanjin, respecting the journal’s founding vision and literary
legacy while enhancing its relevance and rebuilding of readership to ensure a viable future”.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Margaret Sheil said: “Since its foundation by Clem Christesen in Brisbane in 1940, Meanjin has been instrumental in shaping Australian literary and intellectual culture,” she said.

“It has provided a vital platform for critical discussion, a showcase of emerging writers and a
valuable training ground for leading Australian publishers and editors. We are honoured to
be entrusted with the legacy of this cultural icon.”

Meanjin is the country’s second-oldest literary magazine. Southerly was launched in 1939.

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