Cultural Artefact: Literary Magazines

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Tasmania has produced some significant literary magazines, notably in the nineteenth-century Quadrilateral (1874) and Walch's Literary Intelligencer (1859-1916), and Island magazine in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Quadrilateral, a monthly journal of politics, literature and philosophy, was edited by AI Clark, a significant player in Australia's federation movement. Ten issues were published in 1874. Founded in 1979, when it was known as the Tasmanian Review, Island magazine has been regarded as in the top league of Australia's literary magazines. Its survival for over 25 years is a reflection of its value not only to Tasmania's literary fraternity but also the whole community. It helped nurture many writers, including Amanda Lohrey, and a significant group of poets including Sarah Day, Stephen Edgar, Vicki Raymond and Andrew Sant who co-edited the magazine in its first decade. Islandhas been important in expounding an environmental consciousness that emerged in Tasmania, shown in the environmental writing in issue 93/94, 2003. In the opinion of the author, there has been a decline in standards in the criticism Island has published in recent years.

Published from 1993 to 2000, Siglo included some important material while, from 1993 to 1996, Contemporary Art Tasmania surveyed aspects of art in Tasmania including, in issue 6, 1995, a history of the contemporary art space Chameleon. Published from 1987 to 1993, the quarterly magazine Press Press surveyed the arts in Tasmania. Leatherwood, published from 1991 to 1995, and Forty Degrees South, published from 1995, have been well presented and have profiled aspects of Tasmania's history, heritage and the arts.

Michael Denholm

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