EDITORIAL
GINA MERCER
This issue is the fourth I have worked on since I became editor at Island. That’s effectively a year’s worth of issues crammed into a strenuous nine months. It’s been a steep learning curve but, on the whole, an enjoyably curvaceous experience. The writers have been a joy to work with (well, mostly!) and the production team (small as it is) has been impeccable in its professionalism. I’ve also found great pleasure in meeting the numerous people who provide support for Island in various ways. It makes me appreciate the fact that this is a much-loved magazine. The Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize ran successfully this year with a higher number of entries than ever before. The judges, Judith Beveridge and Rob Riel, did a superb job in record time. After the laborious task of processing all the entries and establishing the database to ensure anonymity for all entrants, it was pure delight for me to contact the winning entrants and deliver their good news. The award ceremony was made entertaining by Philip Mead who, before he announced the winners, regaled us with anecdotes relating to his experience of judging the first competition in 1996 with the inimitable Margaret Scott. This was followed by magnificent readings of the top five poems written by Elizabeth Campbell, Kathryn Lomer, Anne Morgan, Robyn Rowland and Ron Wiseman. The results are up on our website and we will publish the winning poems in a special feature next year.
Another competition supported by Island is open to writers until February 12: The Wildcare Tasmania Nature Writing Prize 2007. The prize money for this competition is $5000 plus a wilderness residency in Tasmania. That makes it well worth entering if you’ve ever felt moved to pen a piece about the environment in which you live and which, indubitably, lives within you.
I make this comment because Professor Jeff Malpas in his interesting introduction to the essays in this issue meditates on the complex interactions between places and the human animals who inhabit them. The essays Jeff Malpas discusses were selected from papers presented at a conference entitled ‘Senses of Place’ held at the University of Tasmania in April 2006. I hope you will find them stimulating and thought-generating.
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