''The Monthly'' is an Australian national magazine of politics, society and the arts, which is published eleven times per year on a monthly basis except the December/January issue. Founded in 2005, it is published by Melbourne property developer

Morry Schwartz Morris Zoltan "Morry" Schwartz, Order of Australia, AM (born 11 March 1948) is an Australian property developer and publisher based in Melbourne. He is the owner of Black Inc., the publisher of the influential ''Quarterly Essay'', ''The Monthly' ...

Contributors

Contributors have included

Mark Aarons Mark Aarons (born 25 December 1951) is an Australian journalist and author. He was a political adviser to New South Wales Premier Bob Carr. Biography Aarons was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, but he was brought up in Sydney. He was educat ...

Waleed Aly Waleed Aly (born 15 August 1978) is an Australian journalist, academic, and lawyer. Aly is a lecturer in politics at Monash University working in their Global Terrorism Research Centre, and a co-host of Network Ten's news and current affairs ...

John Birmingham John Birmingham (born 7 August 1964) is a British-born Australian author, known for the 1994 memoir ''He Died with a Felafel in His Hand'', and his ''Axis of Time'' trilogy. Early life and education Birmingham was born in Liverpool, United ...

, Peter Conrad,

Annabel Crabb Annabel Crabb (born 1973) is an Australian political journalist, commentator and television host who is the ABC's chief online political writer. She has worked for Adelaide's '' The Advertiser'', ''The Sydney Morning Herald'', ''The Age'', the ...

, Richard Flanagan,

Robert Forster Robert Wallace Forster Jr. (July 13, 1941 – October 11, 2019) was an American actor, known for his roles as John Cassellis in '' Medium Cool'' (1969), Captain Dan Holland in ''The Black Hole'' (1979), Abdul Rafai in '' The Delta Force'' (1986 ...

Anna Funder Anna Funder (born 1966) is an Australian author. She is the author of ''Stasiland'' and '' All That I Am'' and the novella ''The Girl With the Dogs''. Life Funder went to primary school in Melbourne and Paris; she attended Star of the Sea Coll ...

, Helen Garner, Anna Goldsworthy,

Kerryn Goldsworthy Dr. Kerryn Lee Goldsworthy (born 14 May 1953) is an Australian freelance writer and former academic. Life and career Goldsworthy has edited four anthologies of Australian writing. She has also written many articles, essays and reviews. She has ...

Ramachandra Guha Ramachandra "Ram" Guha (born 29 April 1958) is an Indian historian, environmentalist, writer and public intellectual whose research interests include social, political, contemporary, environmental and cricket history, and the field of economics. ...

Gideon Haigh Gideon Clifford Jeffrey Davidson Haigh (born 29 December 1965) is an English-born Australian journalist and non-fiction author who writes about sport (especially cricket), business and crime in Australia. He was born in London, was raised in Ge ...

, M. J. Hyland,

Linda Jaivin Linda Jaivin (born 27 March 1955)Clive James Clive James (born Vivian Leopold James; 7 October 1939 – 24 November 2019) was an Australian critic, journalist, broadcaster, writer and lyricist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1962 until his death in 2019.Kate Jennings Catherine Ruth Jennings (20 May 1948 – 1 May 2021) was an Australian poet, essayist, memoirist, and novelist. Biography Jennings grew up on a farm near Griffith, New South Wales. She attended the University of Sydney in the late 1960s, gradua ...

, Paul Kelly, Benjamin Law, Amanda Lohrey, Mungo MacCallum, Shane Maloney,

Robert Manne Robert Michael Manne (born 31 October 1947) is an Emeritus Professor of politics and Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. He is a leading Australian public intellectual. Background Robert Manne was born in Melbo ...

, David Marr,

Maxine McKew Maxine Margaret McKew (born 22 July 1953) is a former Australian Labor politician and journalist; she was the Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government in the First Rudd Ministry and the F ...

, Drusilla Modjeska, Peter Robb,

Kevin Rudd Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is an Australian former politician and diplomat who served as the 26th prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010 and again from June 2013 to September 2013, holding office as the leader of the ...

, Margaret Simons, Tim Soutphommasane,

Lindsay Tanner Lindsay James Tanner (born 24 April 1956) is a former Australian politician. A member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), he represented the seat of Melbourne in the House of Representatives from 1993 to 2010 and served as Minister for Finance ...

Malcolm Turnbull Malcolm Bligh Turnbull (born 24 October 1954) is an Australian former politician and businessman who served as the 29th prime minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018. He held office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. Turnbull grad ...

and

Don Watson Don Watson (born 1949) is an Australian author, screenwriter, former political adviser, and speechwriter. Early life Watson was born in 1949 at Warragul in the Gippsland region of Victoria, and grew up on a farm in nearby Korumburra. Academi ...

Features

Essays The magazine generally publishes

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

s 3,000 to 6,000 words long. The cover stories "Being There", Mark McKenna's investigation of key Australian historian

Manning Clark Charles Manning Hope Clark, (3 March 1915 – 23 May 1991) was an Australian historian and the author of the best-known general history of Australia, his six-volume ''A History of Australia'', published between 1962 and 1987. He has been descri ...

, and Eric Ellis's profile of

Wendi Deng Murdoch Wendi Deng Murdoch (; born Deng Wen Di; December 5, 1968) is a Chinese-born American entrepreneur, investor, movie producer, media mogul, and collector of Chinese contemporary art. Early life and education Wendi Deng was born in Jinan, Shan ...

– the then-wife of media mogul

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...

– were around 10,000 words long. Early in 2006, ''The Monthly'' published "Information Idol: How

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

is making us stupid" by

, and "The Tall Man: Palm Island's Heart of Darkness" by

Chloe Hooper Chloe Melisande Hooper (born 1973) is an Australian author. Her first novel, ''A Child’s Book of True Crime'' (2002), was short-listed for the Orange Prize for Literature and was a ''New York Times'' Notable Book. In 2005, she turned to rep ...

which was extended to the book '' The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island'' in 2008. Both pieces shared the 2006 John Curtin Prize for Journalism. Hooper's piece went on to win the 2006

Walkley Award The annual Walkley Awards are presented in Australia to recognise and reward excellence in journalism. They cover all media including print, television, documentary, radio, photographic and online media. The Gold Walkley is the highest prize and ...

for Magazine Feature Writing. ''The Monthly'' has published in-depth essays that have impacted on Australian politics and politicians. "The Outcast of Camp Echo: The Punishment of

David Hicks David Matthew Hicks (born 7 August 1975) is an Australian who attended al-Qaeda's Al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan, and met with Osama bin Laden during 2001. He was then detained by the United States in Guantanamo Bay detention camp fro ...

" by

Alfred W. McCoy Alfred "Al" William McCoy (born June 8, 1945) is an American historian and educator. He is the Fred Harvey Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.Kevin Rudd Kevin Michael Rudd (born 21 September 1957) is an Australian former politician and diplomat who served as the 26th prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010 and again from June 2013 to September 2013, holding office as the leader of the ...

, and " Gunns: Out of Control" by Richard Flanagan have given wider attention to the issues raised beyond the readership of the magazine. 50,000 copies of the essay "Gunns: Out of Control" were reprinted for letterboxing in the electorates of Australia's environment minister and opposition environment spokesperson by businessman Geoffrey Cousins who decided to mount a campaign against the proposed Bell Bay Pulp Mill in Tasmania after reading it in ''The Monthly''. Arts and Letters ''The Monthly'' contains an Arts and Letters section with independent reviews on books, film, music, theatre, TV, fashion, art and architecture. Regular contributor,

won the 2006

Pascall Prize The Pascall Prize for Arts Criticism, formerly known as the Pascall Prize and then the Walkley-Pascall Award or Walkley-Pascall Award for Arts Criticism, is one of two annual Walkley Arts Journalism prizes awarded by the Walkley Foundation. The ...

for Critical Writing for his popular music criticism in ''The Monthly''. The magazine ceased publishing letters from readers early in 2017. No explanation was ever provided for this decision and the website and print version continue to invite their contribution. In November 2021 the option of commenting on articles published online using the Disqus platform was removed. At the same time, comments on the magazine's Facebook page began to be moderated or disabled. The Nation Reviewed A section at the front of the magazine consisting of a national round-up in a handful of articles, each around 1,000 words. This section is an acknowledgment to the former businessman

Gordon Barton Gordon Page Barton (30 August 19294 April 2005) was an Australian businessman and political activist. Biography He was born in Surabaya, Java, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) of a Dutch mother and Australian father. He showed his intelligenc ...

who founded a weekly newspaper titled ''

Nation Review ''Nation Review'' was an Australian Sunday newspaper, which ceased publication in 1981. It was launched in 1972 after independent publisher Gordon Barton bought out Tom Fitzgerald's ''Nation'' publication and merged it with his own ''Sunday Revi ...

''. Encounters At the back of the magazine there was a one-page story recalling an unlikely but real historical meeting between two famous individuals, for example "Errol Flynn & Fidel Castro". Encounters was written by Shane Maloney and illustrated by Chris Grosz and was published as a collection in August 2011 by Black Inc.''Australian Encounters''
by Chris Grosz and Shane Maloney, ''Black Inc'' (August 2011)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Monthly 2005 establishments in Australia Arts magazines published in Australia Literary magazines published in Australia Monthly magazines published in Australia Magazines established in 2005 Political magazines published in Australia Mass media in Victoria (Australia)