The Journal
The Suburban Review has supported emerging and mid-career writers, artists, and editors since it was founded in 2013, through a publishing practice and a range of creative and professional development programs.
Neither the ‘Melbourne’ nor the ‘Sydney’ Review, we celebrate work which might otherwise fall through the cracks of mainstream publishing: the weird, the experimental, the marginal, slantwise, and always-in-progress. We’ve also worked to build a platform and a home for under-represented and structurally excluded voices.
Working mainly with our peers across Australia—though with increasingly international scope—we’ve built our organisation around principles of ethical publishing. To us, this means aiming for:
- Sustainability
- Inclusion
- Fair remuneration for creative and administrative work
- Accessibility, and
- Diversity
History
From 2013 to 2015, TSR published a quarterly print zine, before moving to an annual print anthology alongside a rolling program of digital publishing from 2015 to 2016.
We adopted our current model of quarterly digital publishing in 2017, developing a themed issue of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, comics, and visual art every three months. Issues are distributed directly to TSR subscribers, and are also available to purchase individually through our website.
TSR has been the work of many hands throughout its history. Our past staff members, including guest editors, are T.J. Robinson, Anupama Pilbrow, Zoe Kingsley, Andie Browne, Josie/Jocelyn Deane, Chris Gooch, Holly Isemonger, Dinu Kumarasinghe, David Mahler, Sarah Pearce, Svetlana Sterlin, and LinLi Wan.
Board
In 2021, we became an incorporated association, and began operating as a membership organisation (which you can join!) led by a Board.
We’re grateful for the guidance of our first and current Board members: Caro Llewellyn (Chair), Anupama Pilbrow (Vice Chair), Rory Green (Secretary), Clara Stackpool (Treasurer), Toby Fitch, Madeleine Gandhi, and Luke Patterson.
Programs
Our internship program was established in 2020, offering a paid pathway into publishing for early-career editors. While we tailor each internship to the interests of the individual, interns with TSR generally learn the ropes of digital publishing across copy-editing, proofing, production, web management, and any other areas of interest. We open applications to this program every six months via our website and social media channels.
Our Jumpstart a Journal program is an annual workshop for emerging editors, writers, designers, and anyone keen to learn how journal publishing works. Established in 2021, the program is digitally delivered across three weeks in winter. From each iteration of the workshop emerges an issue of Hills Hoist, a digital journal edited primarily by participants in the Jumpstart a Journal program.
Partnerships
We’ve been pleased to partner with organisations and individuals in our local publishing sector throughout our history, including:
- The Stella Prize
- NIDA
- Jinghua Qian
- Kingston Arts’ Artz Blitz, an initiative of Kingston Council, and
- Story Factory
The Staff
Editor-in-Chief: Claire Albrecht
Claire is a poet and editor from Mulubinba (Newcastle). Her work has been published widely in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. She was the 2019 Emerging Writers Festival fellow at the State Library of Victoria, a 2020 Varuna ‘Writing Fire, Writing Drought’ fellow, the 2021 West Darling Arts Writer in Residence, and a 2022 resident at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in New Mexico, USA. Claire’s published books include pinky swear and handshake, and her poem ‘The Anabranch’ won the 2022 Newcastle Poetry Prize. Claire is Editor-in-Chief of The Suburban Review.
Contact at: editor@thesuburbanreview.com.
Deputy Editor: Erin McFadyen
Erin is a writer and editor from Awabakal and Worimi land in Newcastle. Her writing can be found in Foam Magazine, The Monthly, Overland, Art & Australia, The Mascara Review, Review 31, and Artist Profile, where she was Deputy Editor from 2020 to 2023. She also writes catalogue essays and copy for arts organisations including Blacktown Arts Centre, and works occasionally as a freelance copy-editor, mainly on books about art.
Contact at: deputy@thesuburbanreview.com.
Art Editor: Tahney Fosdike
Tahney is a writer and editor from Pomberuk living in France. Her arts criticism and non-fiction bylines can be found in Artshub, Australian Book Review, Metro Magazine, Art Almanac, Zee Feed, Mamamia, and Archer Magazine, among others. She works as a content specialist supporting creative & cultural individuals/organisations while also curating and critiquing arts writing in her monthly newsletter Sticky Teeth.
Contact at: art.comics.editor@thesuburbanreview.com
Layout Editor: Mikayla Bamford
Mikayla is a writer and editor, and more importantly, a book fanatic. She studies writing and publishing at RMIT University and has been published in the Bowen Street Press. She’s a chronic crier who writes fiction and creative non-fiction that’s afflicted with angst. In her spare time she tries to manage the hair pulling process of terra-forming her Animal Crossing island.
Associate Editor: Ruby Hillsmith
Ruby Hillsmith is a writer, editor and poet living on Wurundjeri land. She was the 2020 Writers Victoria Writeability Poetry Fellow, a 2020–21 Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow, and co-editor-in-chief of the 31st edition of RMIT’s Visible Ink. She can be found at rubyhillsmith.com.
Associate Editor: Sarah Stivens
Sarah is a poet, writer, and editor living on Boon Wurrung/Bunurong land. Her words have appeared in Cordite, Australian Poetry Journal, Baby Teeth Journal, Catalyst, and other outlets. She was the ASA/Ray Koppe Varuna fellow for 2022, and is a current Writers Victoria Writeability fellow. She writes about mental illness, disability, and rural identities. When not writing, you’ll probably find her swearing at her sewing machine or kissing her cat’s chin.
Associate Editor: Lora Subotic
Lora is a writer and editor living in Narrm. Her work has been featured in Demure magazine, The City Journal, and published by the Bowen Street Press. She was a recipient to the inaugural Ultimo Press Prize with her poetry included in the prize anthology Everything, All At Once. Her work focuses on transnationalism of second-generation refugee children, the inheritance of memory, and the futile search for ‘home’. She likes to read her work aloud to her cats. They like it less.
Associate Editor: L.B. Hazelthorn
L. B. is a writer and editor. They read poetry with Overland and concoct fictions about demons, dreamers, and secret languages. They’ve spent half a lifetime in imaginary worlds, leaving behind a trail of aliases and unfinished Arts degrees, and now live in lutruwita/Tasmania. Their hobbies include baking brownies and simping over villains.
Associate Editor: Megan Payne
Megan is a dancer, choreographer, and writer, based in Narrm. In 2020, in response to lockdowns, they co-created and hosted the radio show Land Swimming as a way to feel closer to swimming and bodies of water. Megan loves writing poetry and is currently working on a fiction manuscript about a non-binary character’s relationship with their ageing Grandmother, who also happens to be a werewolf. They study Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT.
Intern: Joel Keith
Joel Keith is a writer and musician living on unceded Wurundjeri land. Their writing has appeared in Island, Antithesis,Babyteeth, The Big Issue and Voiceworks, where they edit fiction. In 2021 their story ‘A Case of You’ was shortlisted for the Julia Cowan Youth Award. You can find them on Instagram @keithyjoel, in bookshops complaining about how they can’t find any Dionne Brand, or in small-to-medium-sized music venues being tiresomely, vocally in love.
Founder: T. J. Robinson
T. J. is a writer and editor living in Melbourne, Australia. He has been published in Seizure, Tincture Journal, and The Victorian Writer. In 2010 he won the Grace Marion Wilson Emerging Writers Competition. He founded The Suburban Review in 2013 and edited it until 2019. You can visit his website or follow him on Twitter @TJ_Writing.