The Editor also spoke about ABR’s funding predicament. At present, the magazine receives no federal funds – for the first time in at least three decades. Happily, we have had success in Creative Australia’s crucial 2025-28 multi-year round (we sympathise with those arts organisation that missed out). But this leaves us with 2024 to negotiate. (We have applied for a small grant covering July to December 2024, but the outcome was unknown as we went to press.)

This federal reality is compounded by the diminution of state funding, doubtless caused by the depletion of arts budgets around the country.

To give you a sense of the challenges facing literary magazines, here is a stark comparison. In 2019, ABR received a total of $245,000 from the erstwhile Australia Council and from a total of five state arts ministries (Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia, and Queensland).

This year we have received a grand total of $12,000 – all from Arts SA. It seems ironic that the only government presently supporting the magazine is the one in South Australia – where the magazine started in 1961.

The lack of funding from Creative Victoria since 2019 seems lamentable and myopic, given ABR’s location in the heart of, and immense contribution to, the City of Literature.

Obviously, the magazine continues to seek funding wherever it can, while also maintaining diverse programs and paying writers fairly. We thank everyone who has donated to ABR in recent months. Your donations are stirring and enabling.

Our donations flyer accompanies this issue. Those wishing to donate can also do so safely via the website. 

The ABR Inglis Fellowship

While arts budgets are notoriously strapped (especially when it comes to literature, the poor cousin of arts funding in this country), cultural philanthropy assumes new and visionary forms.

Recently, friends and associates of the late Ken and Amirah Inglis approached the magazine with a view to commemorating the Inglises’ interests and achievements through the creation of a fellowship intended to encourage young writers and scholars. A number of prompt donations have enabled us to proceed with the ABR Inglis Fellowship, which is open to those thirty-five and under. Writers of all kinds have until 1 July to apply. The chosen Fellow will work closely with the Editor and will, over the course of twelve months, contribute three review essays or commentaries in the field of Australia history and culture.

Professor Frank Bongiorno, one of the organisers, told Advances: ‘The ABR Inglis Fellowship was created to honour the remarkable Ken and Amirah Inglis, whose writings and participation in Australia’s cultural and social life enriched this country. Ken and Amirah were generous in encouraging young scholars and providing them with rare opportunities; this Fellowship seeks to acknowledge that legacy.’

Full details appear on our website. 

ABR Arts forever!

Recently, out of the blue, the magazine received an extraordinary grant of $5,000 from the Sidney Myer Fund ‘in recognition of the exemplary work your organisation undertakes in the course of its everyday activities’.

To celebrate this most welcome grant, we will draw on it each month to support one of our arts reviews. This month, it is Anwen Crawford’s critique of Goran Stolevski’s new film, Housekeeping for Beginners, on page 40.

It seems opportune to advance the ABR Arts section from the back pages. Henceforth, our arts reviews will sit at the heart of the magazine – where they emphatically belong!

At the Melbourne function mentioned above, Robyn Archer made the point that arts criticism – apart from its pleasures and provocations – provides an essential record of creative endeavour in this country.

A podcast of one’s own

Devotees of podcasts in addition to our own shouldn’t miss Julia Gillard’s new A Podcast of One’s Own, which the former prime minister is co-hosting (on an alternating basis) with Sarah Holland-Batt, celebrated author of The Jaguar and other poetry collections. (The other co-host is author-journalist Kathy Lette.) In their first episode together, Gillard and Holland-Batt delved into Anna Funder’s Wifedom, a biographical account of George Orwell’s wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy.