160 Applicants for the APA Editorial Internship at ABR

Peter Rose

To Adelaide for a week: another sojourn at ABR’s second office, at Flinders University. It’s been a busy time on the east coast, on several fronts. Earlier this month we presented both winners of the 2009 Calibre Prize for an Outstanding Essay in Sydney and Melbourne. Fittingly, the two State Libraries provided the venues. Large audiences heard Jane Goodall and Kevin Brophy introduce and read from their work.

These two essays are as different in tone and subject matter as their titles differ in length: ‘Footprints’ for Goodall; and ‘“What’re yer lookin’ at yer fuckin’ dog?”: Violence and Fear in Žižek’s Post-political Neighbourhood’ for Brophy. Superlative readers they are too, but unfortunately we could only hear about ten minutes from both of them. Each essay runs to just under 10,000 words (the maximum length). Had they been read in their entirety we would have been there until well after the libraries closed.

These congenial gatherings provided me with an excellent opportunity to thank Copyright Agency Limited, whose Cultural Fund underwrites the Calibre Prize. CAL immediately liked the idea when I floated it three years ago. I had always wanted to present a major essay prize, to complement our other competitions. I knew it would require a substantial first prize. This was simply beyond ABR’s means, so it was gratifying when CAL decided to fund Calibre (the obvious name) for three years.

These three years have whizzed by, and five exceptional essays attest to the need for such a prize: works by Elisabeth Holdsworth, Rachel Robertson, Mark Tredinnick, Jane Goodall and Kevin Brophy – not to mention the many shortlisted and longlisted essays that have added lustre to Calibre. Dr David McCooey makes the point that prizes for essays are rarities in this world, despite the present paucity of literary prizes. Rarer still are prizes for original essays, not just those published previously.

Nothing seems certain in this world at present, but we are hopeful that the Calibre Prize will continue next year. If it does, we aim to present it in an expanded form. Stay tuned!

The contribution of CAL’s Cultural Fund to the literary world is lucrative and multifarious. Last year it enabled the Australian Publishers’ Association to offer five editorial internships for six months in a variety of publishing houses, big and small. This program proved so successful that it is being repeated in 2009. Happily for us, ABR’s application for one of these internships was successful, in the Small Publisher category.

This is great news for ABR, which has long needed more staff. (There are just three of us, two employed part time; sometimes we get the feeling the world thinks the magazine is rather bigger than it is!) Even more pleasing, though, is the opportunity to participate in a scheme which is intended to introduce bright young publishing graduates to the editorial life, to help them refine their existing skills and experience, and to guide them at the beginning of what ABR, CAL and the APA all trust will be long and successful careers.

ABR advertised immediately and attracted 160 applications. The great majority of these were impressive, so it was daunting to whittle it down to a longlist of ten. We interviewed the candidates last week and were heartened by the range of qualifications, the diversity of applicant’s pathways to publishing, and their interest in ABR. The choice was not easy, but ultimately we appointed Mark Gomes, ex-CSIRO Publishing employee and a graduate of the University of Queensland and RMIT. Mark starts with us next week.

We could have appointed half a dozen people. Fortunately, several other editorial internships are on offer, and such is the success of the program that it seems likely to continue for many years to come. ABR certainly hopes to participate again, down the track.

Meanwhile, enjoy the May issue. Editors shouldn’t have favourites, but I commend Brian Matthews’ long article on Henry Lawson and his relevance today; and John Kinsella contributes a superb article on the great poet Peter Porter, who, in February, celebrated his eightieth birthday with yet another masterly collection of poetry, whose title, Better Than God, will doubtless have him pilloried in several benighted régimes.