Griffith Review: Griffith Review 47 (ePub)

'Go west young man' has been a siren call in Australia, Canada and the US for centuries - a new frontier for them, yet already home to others for millennia. In Australia, the lure of bounty from mineral riches drew generations of fortune hunters to its western third. For some this was a stop on the road to a better place, for many a destination for new beginnings, while for those who had always lived there dislocation was inevitable.

Since the 1980s Perth has become a byword for new wealth and in the first years of the 21st Century became a boom-town the likes of which Australia hasn't seen since the 1850s. There is evidence this is starting to slow, but what will be left when the boom deflates?

WA is also Australia's (and perhaps the world's) largest state, most of which is a vast desert butting hard against a broiling ocean. The view, looking back east, is sceptical, looking west uncertain, with a lot of space between both.

This edition will see submissions from Tim Winton to Carmen Lawrence reflecting on the unique place and perspective that is Western Australia. With the escalating pace of change in the west it is time to reappraise what makes Western Australia distinctive and how its future might unfold.

Authors include: Tim Winton, Gail Jones, Brooke Davis, Carmen Lawrence, Shaun Tan, Helen Trinca, David Whish-Wilson, Ashley Hay, Kim Scott, David Carlin and many more.
Professor Julianne Schultz AM FAHA is the founding editor of Griffith REVIEW, the award-winning literary and public affairs quarterly, produced by Griffith University and Text Publishing. She chairs the Australian Film Television and Radio School, is a member of Australia Council for the Arts Pool of Peers, and was until recently a non-executive director of the boards of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Grattan Institute. Julianne is an acclaimed author, and in 2009 became a Member of the Order of Australia for services to journalism and the community.