The "School Magazine" is Australia's oldest literary magazine, in fact the oldest literary magazine for children anywhere in the world. Commencing in 1916 as a free publication for NSW primary school students, with the aim of presenting Australian writers for Australian children. I remember using the magazine as a student myself in the 60s, as a beginning teacher in the early 80s, and as a teacher-librarian and literacy teacher today!
Radio National ran a wonderful program yesterday, called "An older kind of magic: a history of the School Magazine", and presented some great anecdotes about its 94-year history. Included as interviewees were my friends and former colleagues, Jonathan Shaw and Cassandra Golds.
If you missed yesterday's broadcast, it is now available as a downloadable podcast here! A very worthwhile experience!
Thanks to writer, Geoffrey McSkimming, and artist, Tohby Riddle, I once featured in a "School Magazine" play ("Touchdown", Vol 87, No 10, Nov 2002, pp 341-346). The character of "Ian, the lost librarian", a Tarzan memorabilia fanatic (instead of "Star Trek", of course), appears in "Mr A at the Floor of Heaven, or, Not Quite Yeti".
"The misguided librarians are lost in the snow,
Dewey's their system, but snowy they go..."
Ian the librarian wears a spotted loincloth over his snow-pants, of course. He was joined by my real life SCIS workmates of the day, Anne (aka "Mrs Dowling"), Wendy and Deirdre.
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3 comments:
That issue was just before I arrived here. I thoroughly enjoyed the podcast, particularly the strong female editor's input into the Magazine. Patricia Wrightson was a favourite author in my youth.
Nice one, Ian. There's clearly room for a whole other broadcast.
Ian: I mentioned this post in the comments at the Hindsight page, and the moderator has thanked you there.
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