Statement on behalf of the Meanjin editors read by Eli McLean, Deputy Editor, at a literary sector gathering at Melbourne’s Trades Hall on Friday 19 September 2025.

Since 1945 the University of Melbourne has been Meanjin’s custodian. Two weeks ago Melbourne University Publishing announced that they will no longer publish Meanjin. We were not involved in this decision.

We are enormously proud of what Meanjin has created across the past three years. Honouring cultural sovereignty, we have embarked on the journal’s first Indigenising agenda with an Elder-led approach to the reading experience. We’ve published new work by Australian writers that’s been welcomed by readers, included on school and university curricula, cited by global researchers, earned critical acclaim and won many awards. We’ve increased our payment rate, recognising that writers’ work is precarious—and crucial. We’ve introduced new stockists and joint subscriptions, writers’ residencies with InPlace, and new partnerships with black&write!, QUT Carumba Institute and Sweatshop Literacy Movement. Drawing on the audacious Meanjin heritage, our design has offered a clarity and a graphic boldness matching the ambition of our writers. We’ve invigorated Meanjin’s national presence with our local and interstate events—big thanks to Better Read Than Dead, Gleebooks, Mary Martin Bookshop, Muse, narrm ngarrgu Library and Family Services, the National Library of Australia and Readings—growing our literary community as active, collegiate participants in Australia’s cultural life. We’ve done some thorough archiving and extended the Daily Readings. The two impactful anthologies—Essays that Changed Australia and the forthcoming First Nations Writing (guest-edited by Jeanine Leane and Dan Bourchier)—as well as our first-ever edition dedicated entirely to First Nations writers (guest-edited by Eugenia Flynn and Bridget Caldwell-Bright) have repositioned the Meanjin legacy for generations to come.

Our achievements have kept fulfilling that fearless 1940 promise when Clem Christesen and his collaborators made the radical decision to establish a new literary journal—with poetry its foundation—at a time of global political upheaval. That idea remains just as provocative and just as urgent today.

Our final two editions will rapidly become collectors’ items—find yours fast:

  • Meanjin 84.3 Spring 2025 (out mid-September) reflects critically on fifty years since the dismissal of the Whitlam government, offering new perspectives across First Nations sovereignty, feminism, journalism, community activism, arts and culture. At this critical time, our writers will shift your thinking on what makes for a robust Australian democracy.
  • Meanjin 84.4 Summer 2025 (out early December) is the venerable journal’s 85th anniversary edition. None of the renowned writers commissioned to offer responses to their past work could possibly have known any more than us that this edition would become Meanjin’s last. Poignantly, our final feature interview is with founder Clem Christesen (1911-2003; editor 1940–1974). In quotations drawn from across his published work, Christesen speaks powerfully to the circumstances compelling Meanjin’s emergence in a time of war, exhorting Australia’s finest writers to lead us toward a time of peace. This is a vision every Meanjin editor has held dear.

We honour and thank Clem Christesen AM OBE, Jim Davidson, Judith Brett AM, Jenny Lee, Christina Thompson, Stephanie Holt, Ian Britain, Sophie Cunningham AM, Sally Heath, Zora Sanders and Jonathan Green for your dedication, expertise and deep care as Meanjin editors. You have evolved Meanjin as a living archive, a contemporary lodestar and an ambitious forecaster. Together, our work has nurtured more than twenty thousand pieces of new Australian writing. We have opened minds, launched careers and transformed the way Australia sees itself.

We honour and thank the First Nations Elders whose wisdom has guided us through our Indigenising work and who have offered such compelling Meanjin Papers these past three years: Gaja Kerry Charlton (Yagarabul), Noel Pearson (Guugu Yimithirr), N’arwee’t Prof Carolyn Briggs AM (Boonwurrung), Theresa Penangke Alice (Arrernte), Rodney Carter (Dja Dja Wurrung), Mike Ross (Olkola), Joe Geia (Gugu-Yimithirr Kaurareg), Anyume John Kemarre Cavanagh (Arrernte), Djon Mundine OAM (Banjalung), Marion Kickett (Whadjuk Noongar) and June Oscar AO (Bunuba).

The rigorous work of our Indigenising agenda has been supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund and we thank them wholeheartedly. We are also indebted to the guidance of the First Nations Australian Writers’ Network, black&write! and the Carumba Institute—thank you all so much. 

Our warm thanks to the Australia Council, now Creative Australia, who have also invested in Meanjin writers’ fees over many, many years. Most recently, and with Writing Australia about to launch valuable new programs and support, we’ve been energised by the dedication and expertise of fellow journal editors across Australia as we’ve collaborated to inform all of that important work. We thank the editors of Archer, Bramble, Cordite, Griffith Review, Kill Your Darlings, Liminal, Mascara Review, Overland, Rabbit, Southerly, Splinter, The Suburban Review, Sydney Review of Books and Westerly for all of our collaborations. May you all go from strength to strength.

We honour and thank the Meanjin design and production team: Stephen Banham, Jack Callil, Pat Cannon, Nikki Lusk, Richard McGregor, Zoe Padgham and Stilgherrian, and our long-time illustrator Lee Lai, plus MUP Production Manager Pilar Aguilera and accounts team Remy Ren and Owen Ouyang. Supersharp legends, every one of you.

We honour and thank the inaugural and current Meanjin Cultural & Literary Advisory: Dan Bourchier, Sophie Cunningham AM, Winnie Dunn, Samantha Faulkner, Grace Lucas-Pennington, Jinghua Qian and Christos Tsiolkas. Your ethics, your tenacity and your generous insight have offered guidance of pure gold.

We honour and thank the Meanjin genre editors: Claire Cao, Bronwyn Lea, Aunty Jeanine Leane, Tess Smurthwaite, Emma Sutherland and Cher Tan. Your superb editorial judgement has enriched Meanjin immeasurably. Thank you all, so very much, for our warm collegiality and venturous collaborations. 

To every Meanjin reader across our 85 years: thank you for your curiosity, your commitment and your support. Please continue to enjoy our archive at meanjin.com.au as we all continue to discover the influence of Meanjin writers on contemporary Australian writing. What a phenomenal legacy. 

To every writer whose work we’ve been honoured to publish: we celebrate you with tears in our eyes. You have captured this Australian cultural moment. Your work has entered everyday language, sparked royal commissions and inspired global movements. You have spoken up and spoken out—often at great personal cost—and we have stood right beside you. You have shown us the beauty and the power of a literature without compromise. Across nine decades, Meanjin has become a national cultural institution, respected and treasured across the continent and across the world. Your work doesn’t just withstand the test of time: it is eternal.