We are pleased to announce that Cordite Publishing Inc. and The School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University have entered into a major new cultural partnership. As Jaya Savige, Poetry Editor of The Australian, wrote in his survey of the best Australian literature for 2015, Cordite is ‘one of the major arteries of our poetic discourse, as confident and sophisticated a poetry forum as Australia has had’. Monash has an established profile in the field of poetry research, with award-winning practitioners on staff: current postgraduates include the Poetry Editor of The Age, Gig Ryan, and leading New Zealand poet, Joan Fleming. While the journal will retain its hard-won and perseverant editorial independence, the partnership will provide opportunities for workshops and internships for Monash undergraduates, a venue for the publication of postgraduate academic research and a partner with mutually vested interests in Australian literature for future projects. The School’s expertise in Translation Studies will also contribute to Cordite’s growing international profile, especially with new Cordite Translations Editor Alice Whitmore fully engaged.
A collaborative event to publicise this venture, including readings by some of Melbourne’s leading poets, will be announced shortly.
In addition to this exciting news (albeit unrelated to the partnership save for good timing), the Cordite Books list will be distributed in North America by the venerable SPD Books based in Berkeley, California. Three terrifyingly heavy crates of books are on their way across the Pacific to their distribution centre. Says SPD of itself, ‘Because we’re a nonprofit, everything we do is aimed at helping essential but underrepresented literary communities participate fully in the marketplace and in the culture at large. We do this by offering book distribution, information services, and public advocacy programs to hundreds of small publishers’ … so we’re in solid hands with a kindred organisational ethos.
And, just for the record, Cordite Poetry Review will never revert to print. Our printed books are an important extension of and counterweight to the online journal and its current / future readers – a significant increase in their global visibility and access is nothing but a good thing.
