THE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3795, 14 August 1936, Page 7

THE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL

REVIEW OF THE AUGUST ISSUE.

Overseas critics have condemned a great deal of the work of Australian writers on the ground that there is a certain dreary sameness about their work—that they write too much of droughts and fires and floods, and that their stories contain too many alleged comic bush characters of the stereotyped “ Dad ” and “ Dave ” class.

To this criticism the August issue of The Australian Journal is a most effective answer. From cover to cover there is not a dreary story in the magazine, and most refreshing is the entire absence of the half-witted countryman who never existed except in fiction, but who was invented to tickle the ribs of city readers of the last generation. The Australian Journal is developing a school of authors whose work can hold its own anywhere, and who rank with magazine writers the world over. Contributors for August include William Hatfield, Helen Somers, Vance Palmer, Catherine Shepherd, Rex Grayson, Louis Kaye, Beryl Gray, “ Ladye Jane,” and others. The usual cooking, fashion, needlework, knitting, radio, dressmaking, and children’s sections are featured, and £25 is offered as prize money in an interesting competition. The price is only sixpence— at all news agents’.