Advances

ABR was one of the original tenants when the Boyd Community Hub opened to much fanfare in 2012. From lion dancing to African drums to an adult-size Elmo, it was an occasion to remember as the magazine started a new chapter south of the Yarra. After the official opening, attendees filed up the staircase to our office, where they were treated to further festivities: a welcome from Editor Peter Rose and readings by ABR notables, including Lisa Gorton, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, and Rodney Hall. Over the years, such festivities have become a familiar sight at Boyd, with events ranging from ABR prize ceremonies to Shakespeare Sonnetathons to a memorable conversation between Gerald Murnane and Andy Griffiths downstairs in the Southbank Library.

Ruminating on the inimitable critic Frank Kermode in 2020, Peter Rose wrote: ‘What we read at difficult times in our lives – plague, insurrection, divorce, major root canal work, etc. – is always telling.’ One year on, our collective difficulties persist (worsen even); many of us find ourselves under lockdown once more, isolated from the world and one another. Yet what we read still matters, offering, as it always has, relief and solace during times of hardship. Fiction, perhaps more than any other genre, is a sort of bracing consolation.

Yes, you still have time to enter the 2021 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. It closes at midnight on May 3 (AEDT). The Jolley Prize, worth a total of $12,500, is being judged by Gregory Day, Melinda Harvey, and Elizabeth Tan. Meanwhile, judging continues in the Calibre Essay Prize. In early May, we will inform all entrants of the status of their essays. We look forward to publishing the winning essay in the July issue. And looking ahead, the Peter Porter Poetry Prize will open in July. This will be the eighteenth year for ABR’s poetry prize.