Colin Roderick Memorial Lecture

Ivor Indyk presents the 2026 Colin Roderick Memorial Lecture in Cairns.

Publishing at a distance

It is a feature of literary publishing, to be marked by distance and delay. Sometimes there are other ‘d’s involved, depending on your point of view – disappointment, discouragement, and also ‘difficulty’ – the objection voiced by readers. There is distance between the publication of a literary work and its recognition; distance between the pace of publishing driven by the marketplace, and the leisurely pace required by literature; and a third kind of distance, between the places where people expect their reading to come from – the big publishers, capital cities, bestsellers – and where literature might dwell, in the provinces. Then, as a teacher and publisher of Australian literature, looking back over forty years, I face another kind of distance, and the question – how much of it remains?

Ivor Indyk is director of the highly regarded Giramondo Publishing Company, and Emeritus Professor in the Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University. He was the founding editor of HEAT magazine and co-founder of the Sydney Review of Books. He has written essays on many aspects of Australian literature, art, architecture and literary publishing, and a monograph on David Malouf; he has a deep knowledge of Australian literature as a critic, teacher, editor and publisher. Giramondo publishes poetry, fiction and non-fiction by Australian and overseas writers, and its titles have won many literary awards.

When: Thursday 30^th July 2026
Time: 6 pm to 7 pm
Where: Bulmba-ja Theatre, Cairns-Gimuy
$ Cost: Free [in partnership and support of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music]
Registration link here