About Meanjin

Meanjin

Meanjin (meanjin.com.au) is one of Australia's longest-running literary magazines — a quarterly journal of poetry, fiction, essays, memoir and criticism founded in Brisbane in 1940 by Clem Christesen. Named for the Yugara word for the land on which Brisbane stands, it moved to Melbourne in 1945, became an editorially independent imprint of Melbourne University Publishing in 2008, survived an announced closure at the end of 2025, and in 2026 returned to Brisbane under the custodianship of the Queensland University of Technology, with publication of new print and digital work resuming later that year.

Overview

Meanjin is Australia's most eminent literary journal, in Melbourne University Publishing's description — a quarterly print edition updated continuously online, publishing new work by hundreds of Australian writers each year and fostering a rich and rigorous national conversation through poetry, fiction, essays, memoir and criticism. After starting out as a journal of poetry, it broadened early to reflect contemporary thinking on literature, the other arts and the broader issues of the times — a breadth it has sustained for more than eight decades, publishing some of the earliest serious discussion of subjects that later attracted sustained attention: migration, television, suburbia, popular music, the Anzac tradition, Australia's "cultural cringe," museums, drugs, food and travel. While the main focus is Australia, Meanjin also covers issues of global concern and is committed to publishing the best of new Australian writing.

History

When Clem Christesen founded the journal in Magandjin (Brisbane) in December 1940, he gave it the Yugara name Meanjin to relate "culture … to place." The first issue — originally titled Meanjin Papers: Contemporary Queensland Verse, released for Christmas 1940 — was, in literary critic Tony Gibbs's later description, a sheaf of eight pages containing a small poem by Brian Vrepont, a sea-shanty by the editor and other unobtrusive pieces, "a publication that might more appropriately have been titled A Brisbane Yellow Book." The rival magazine Angry Penguins gave issue no. 4 a qualified commendation: "We Approve: Meanjin Papers … Here the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."

Five years later the University of Melbourne invited Meanjin to relocate to Melbourne, where it found the stability and national reach that carried it through three quarters of a century. Christesen edited it himself from 1940 to 1974 — a 34-year founding tenure — followed by Jim Davidson (1975–1982), Judith Brett (1982–1987), Jenny Lee (1987–1994), Christina Thompson (1994–1998), Stephanie Holt (1998–2001), Ian Britain (2001–2008), Sophie Cunningham (2008–2011), Sally Heath (2011–2012), Zora Sanders (2013–2015), Jonathan Green (2015–2022) and Esther Anatolitis (2022–2025).

Past contributors form a rollcall of Australian letters: Judith Wright, Kylie Tennant, Manning Clark, Vance and Nettie Palmer, A. D. Hope, Dymphna Cusack, Martin Boyd, Alan Marshall, Dorothy Hewett, Peter Singer, Vincent Buckley, Donald Horne, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Patrick White, Gwen Harwood, Bruce Dawe, David Malouf, Humphrey McQueen, Jack Hibberd, Bruce Pascoe, Roberta Sykes, Helen Garner, π.O., Alex Miller, Frank Moorhouse, John Morrison, Sarah Holland-Batt, Hal Porter, Rodney Hall, A. A. Phillips, Alexis Wright, Peter Carey, Alice Pung, Michelle de Kretser, J. M. Coetzee, Carmen Callil, Claire G. Coleman and Dorothy Porter. International authors published include Jean-Paul Sartre and Kurt Vonnegut. Among its signature moments: A. A. Phillips's 1950 essay on the "cultural cringe" gave a generation of readers an enduring name for colonial self-doubt.

In early 2008 Meanjin became an editorially independent imprint of Melbourne University Publishing. In September 2025 MUP announced that publication would cease at the end of the year — MUP chair Warren Bebbington said the board "found it no longer viable to produce the magazine ongoing" on "purely financial grounds," and chief executive Foong Ling Kong wrote that "the financial pressures of publishing a literary magazine in today's world … are inescapable and considerable, and the readership is shrinking." The news devastated the literary community: writers called literary magazines "the lifeblood of Australian literature," enabling emerging writers to build a publication track record, respond to local and national concerns, and earn income for writers and arts workers. Louise Adler, the MUP chief executive who had placed Meanjin under the publisher's administration, noted that "given the coffers of the University of Melbourne, one would have thought the paltry amount Meanjin requires on a yearly basis was small coin for the intellectual contribution the magazine, at its best, can make to our literary culture." Former editor Sally Heath argued the journal should be recognised "as a valuable part of the University of Melbourne's cultural portfolio, alongside the Melbourne Theatre Company and the Ian Potter Museum."

Instead of dying, Meanjin was acquired. In February 2026 the Queensland University of Technology became the journal's new custodian — a symbolic homecoming to Brisbane after 85 years — with QUT appointing an editorial board to ensure the journal's independence, values and standards, and recruiting an editor by national competitive search. In April 2026 Ashley Hay took up the role of Establishing Editor at QUT to facilitate the journal's relocation and regeneration, ahead of the appointment of an ongoing editor later that year. Publication of new digital and print work was set to resume later in 2026. QUT vice-chancellor Margaret Sheil said Meanjin had been "instrumental in shaping Australian literary and intellectual culture" and that the university was "honoured to be entrusted with the legacy of this cultural icon." MUP's Warren Bebbington said the board was "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."

Content and Positioning

The quarterly print journal publishes poetry, fiction, essays, memoir and criticism; the website is updated continuously. Under Christesen's founding conception and every subsequent editor, the journal's defining commitment has been breadth — literature and the arts alongside the issues of the times — with Australia as the main focus and global concerns given wide coverage.

Coverage and Audience

Meanjin serves a national Australian readership of literary readers, writers, academics and cultural commentators, with international contributors and readers through its print and digital editions. Based in Brisbane under QUT custodianship (1940–1945, 2026–present; Melbourne 1945–2025), it remains a national institution.

Ownership

Meanjin is published by the Queensland University of Technology, which became custodian in February 2026 under terms ensuring editorial independence, values and standards. It was previously an editorially independent imprint of Melbourne University Publishing (2008–2025), and before that published with the support of the University of Melbourne, the Literature Fund of the Australia Council for the Arts, CAL and Arts Victoria alongside subscriptions and sales. Further ownership and financial details are not publicly confirmed.

Digital Presence

The journal maintains meanjin.com.au with its about pages, contributor archive and publishing information, alongside the continuously updated online edition. The digital archive documents more than eight decades of Australian writing, from the wartime Brisbane of the Meanjin Papers to the journal's twenty-first-century renewal.

Looking ahead, the Establishing Editor's task is to carry that record into print and digital publication again, preserving what QUT calls the journal's independence, values and standards for a new generation of readers and contributors.

Sources and Further Reading

• Meanjin, "About Meanjin" — history, editors, contributors, the QUT transfer.
• Melbourne University Publishing, "Meanjin" — editor lineage and the custodianship transfer.
• ArtsHub, "Meanjin: bean counting misses the intangible value of reading and imagining" — the closure announcement and reaction.
• Mediaweek (harro.com), "Iconic literary journal Meanjin revived by QUT" — the 2026 revival.
• The Conversation, "Australian writers shocked and 'disgusted' by closure" — reaction and history.