Turning Pages: Celebrating 40 years of Australian Book Review

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Turning Pages: Celebrating 40 years of Australian Book Review

By Jane Sullivan

Not so long ago, the literary magazine was one of Australia's most endangered species. Plagued by small circulation and high costs, just surviving on grants that could be withdrawn at any time, the journals battled a precarious present and an even more gloomy future. Some went under.

But then something happened: the survivors adapted, changed and bloomed. And perhaps none more than Australian Book Review, which this month celebrates its 40th year and its 400th edition.

Australian Book Review's 40th anniversary edition.

Australian Book Review's 40th anniversary edition.

"The magazine has never been healthier and more secure," says editor Peter Rose. "It will survive and flourish for decades to come."

Actually ABR goes back further than 40 years: the first series was founded in Adelaide in 1961. Edited by Max Harris and Rosemary Wighton, it ran until 1974. Then the second series was launched in 1978, edited by John McLaren. First contributors included Don Watson, Thomas Shapcott and Bruce Beaver, and one of the first books reviewed was a novel by a newcomer, Helen Garner's Monkey Grip.

Helen Garner's Monkey Grip was one of the first novels reviewed when the second series of the Australian Book Review was launched in 1978 .

Helen Garner's Monkey Grip was one of the first novels reviewed when the second series of the Australian Book Review was launched in 1978 .

Rose, a former publisher and a renowned poet, is the sixth editor, after Kerryn Goldsworthy, Louise Adler, Rosemary Sorensen and the late Helen Daniel. When he took over in 2001, ABR was a small, respected but somewhat threatened monthly print magazine.

Now it's all over the shop. As well as the print magazine there's a digital version and a website, with plenty of free content. Recently it has branched out into arts reviewing with its online magazine ABR Arts. It offers three lucrative international prizes, for poetry, short stories and essays; regular fellowships; and curated cultural tours overseas.

Rose realised that in order to survive, the magazine would need to diversify, to become entrepreneurial and to access different markets. The combination of print and digital keeps the magazine vital and relevant, he says. A key goal has been the pursuit of patrons and sponsors, a philanthropic model of funding more often found in the performing arts world: "It explodes the deep-seated view that literature can't hope to enjoy the same kind of patronage."

While some of ABR's contributors are old-guard reviewers from academia and the mainstream media (disclosure: I am one), the magazine has a policy of finding and nurturing new reviewers and essayists. "Practically every day I'm approached by bright young things," Rose says. "They are every bit as passionate about literary culture as past generations were. They are the future."

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Aspiring literary and arts writers work for notoriously bad pay, and sometimes no pay at all; in the past five years, Rose has trebled the magazine's pay rates, and hopes to go on increasing them.

With dwindling space in traditional outlets and a plethora of unreliable reviews on the internet, the magazine battles a continuing perception that literary and arts journalism is in crisis. But Rose finds that view an unconvincing cliche.

"If there is a crisis, it's because Australians are not being offered enough substantial edited curated knowledgeable arts journalism," he says. "That's why I decided to expand our coverage. We're not a Mickey Mouse country in terms of cultural activity and we deserve better arts journalism than we're being given."

ABR has long held ambitions to attract an international following, to become the kind of cultural beacon that draws readers to The London Review of Books or The Times Literary Supplement or The New York Review of Books.

But its core business is still books by Australians, which make up 75 per cent of the books reviewed. And for all the new, diversified forms, the bells and whistles, the aim remains the same: "to provide stylish, intelligent literary journalism". With arts journalism thrown in.

Janesullivan.sullivan9@gmail.com

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