Summer warms us, brings us together, opens our hearts.

Summer warms us, brings us together, opens our hearts.

Meanjin's writers began 2023 imploring us to get our house in order and prepare for what comes next. At the end of this momentous year, Australia's journal of record offers that perfect art-fiction focus to accompany all your summer adventures.

We begin by listening. This edition's Meanjin Paper 'Yulendj Boonwurrung' is by Boonwurrung Elder N'Arweet Dr Carolyn Briggs AM, offering a history of the first people of Melbourne, the Yaluk-ut Weelam clan of the Boonwurrung.

Meanjin 82.4 features new fiction by Jumaana Abdu, Greg Foyster, Nicholas Jose, Kate Kruimink, Em Meller, Angela Meyer, Paddy O'Reilly, Mykaela Saunders and Daniel Sleiman. Agenda-setting essays by Jane Howard, Declan Fry and Heather Taylor Johnson reframe the way we think about and respond to art in Australia; timely memoir pieces by Emma Ashmere, Maudie Palmer AO and Ellena Savage move and unsettle us; Kate Kruimink on our beloved thylacine; Kieran Pender sounds the alarm on whistleblower protections; while Thomas Mayo looks into the future after the Voice to Parliament referendum.

There's poetry by Ion Corcos, Shastra Deo, Michael Farrell, Susan Fealy, Tina Huang, Glenn McPherson, Mark O'Flynn, Jan Owen, Harry Reid, Lucas Smith, and Carl Walsh, in Bronwyn Lea's final edition as Poetry Editor, with Martin Langford on The Year in Poetry.

Our interview this season is with John Kinsella.

Plus David Astle's put together a thrilling little surprise for us! And there's bold experimentations from Kinonymous and Sevana Ohandjanian.

There's plenty more to read - and plenty more for us to talk about.

The days grow longer, and at night the sky stays light. Embrace Australia's finest writing.