In Quadrant editor Keith Windschuttle vents -- and not for the first time -- about the Australia Council's Literature Board's 'slashing' of the annual grant the magazine receives, in The Literature Board's New Low -- noting that:
Throughout the eleven years of the Howard government, its appointees never reduced the funding of overtly left-wing literary magazines like Meanjin, Overland, Griffith Review and Australian Book Review.At this distance I've never really noticed or paid attention to the ostensible (or actual) political leanings of these various publications, but there are quite a few interesting titbits in the piece -- including that:
The only other literary magazine that, like Quadrant, publishes monthly is Australian Book Review. For several years it has had a special deal with the Australia Council that has netted it more than $110,000 a year. This deal was done when ABR pledged to review all Australian-published trade books in literature and the other humanities.An admirable -- and surely subsidy-worthy (if anything is) -- ambition -- though, alas, ABR apparently falls short of it (including, amusingly enough, never having: "reviewed any of the works published by Quadrant Books").