Hollen Singleton

a stapler seems quaint until that one day every 3 years where it is absolutely crucial you have one, fully loaded

The first is a statement on MUP's closure of Meanjin, from me and many of my colleagues in Publishing and Communications at the University of Melbourne.
The second is from one of my talented students. 💙

At the rally to save Meanjin this morning, looking at the expressions on people’s faces as we listened to π.ο. give a reading which was really more like an incantation, thinking not for the first time that no organisation which tries to put such experiences in monetary terms can be trusted with art.

just not ready to say vale meanjin, when literally nothing has been tried

Literary journal Meanjin to close after 85 years of publishing Meanjin, a mainstay of Australia's cultural landscape and the nation's second-oldest literary publication, is shuttering after Melbourne University Publishing decided to cease financial support.

Meanjin Journal is 85 years old; older than the Sydney Opera House. Closing it down is cultural vandalism of the highest order, roughly equivalent to demolishing the above mentioned opera house.

I am disgusted

@meanjin.bsky.social

Decision to close Meanjin criticised as act of ‘utter cultural vandalism’ Shutting long-running literary journal, which published emerging writers as well as the cream of Australia’s literary talent, described as ‘enormous loss’ * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast One of Australia’s longest running literary journals has been scrapped, in what has been described as an act of “utter cultural vandalism” on the part of the University of Melbourne. After 85 years, Meanjin, run by the university’s subsidiary Melbourne University Publishing (MUP), will publish its last edition in December. Although the journal’s editor, Esther Anatolitis, worked her last day at Meanjin on Thursday, the spring and summer quarterly editions of the journal are already at the printers. Continue reading...

Decision to close Meanjin criticised as act of ‘utter cultural vandalism’

One of the reasons I don’t buy the “financial decision” line from MUP is that I’m a Meanjin subscriber, someone (ostensibly) in a position to add a donation to my subscription, and I wasn’t informed about these apparent dire straits. Who cancels the whole thing before pulling the fund-raising lever?

I wrote for Crikey about the decision to shut Meanjin down - and to sever a connection to a hopeful progressive vision of Australian culture

The end of Meanjin after 85 years is as sad as it is infuriating | Ben Walter MUP says it is ‘no longer viable’ to make the literary magazine – but almost none of them are financially viable. That’s not their purpose or value

Here's me in Guardian Australia on the total debacle with Meanjin.

www.theguardian.com/books/commen...

I’m not liking this, I feel like this is genuinely too close to how you actually live

Okay look i was a bit in my feelings and who cares

the success and prestige of this thing (massively successful as a lit journal, no one should get it twisted) isn't want keeps me up at night. but it should have protected it from the overlords. I'm just struggling to see a future for ozlit when its oldest and most vaunted institutions get tossed

It runs an excellent and flexible internship, one that I feel confident recommending to my (UniMelb) students because I know they'll benefit and it won't destroy their ability to make actual money. There are just so many levels to how destructive this is

Meanjin has a highly engaged subscriber base, here and overseas. It gets tonnes of subs every time it opens them (often and for free). It's works are on university reading lists. It's a signal achievement for a writer to appear in its pages. The value lost for the uni (and us) is huge.