The Griffith Review is a quarterly publication featuring essays, reportage, memoir, fiction, poetry and artwork from established and emerging writers and artists. Each edition of the Review is developed around a contemporary theme enabling the issues to be aired and discussed and to put the debate into a public forum.

The Review was founded in 2003. It was originally a joint venture between Griffith University

Griffith University

Griffith University is a public, coeducational, research university located in the southeastern region of the Australian state of Queensland. The university has five satellite campuses located in the Gold Coast, Logan City and in the Brisbane suburbs of Mount Gravatt, Nathan and South Bank. Current...

 and ABC

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...

 Books. Since 2009, Text Publishing has become the University's publisher.

Editorial policy

The themed issues provide an opportunity for broad interpretation and are often deliberately provocotive to engage all opinion and an open debate.

Each issue has a lead essay of up to 20,000 words which frames the topic explored by other writers who present a wide range of perspectives on it. Lead essays have been written by Noel Pearson

Noel Pearson

Noel Pearson is an Aboriginal Australian lawyer, academic, land rights activist and founder of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, an organisation promoting the economic and social development of Cape York....

, Frank Moorhouse

Frank Moorhouse

Frank Moorhouse is an acclaimed Australian writer with a growing international reputation. He has won major Australian national prizes for the short story, the novel, the essay, and for script writing....

, Bill Bowtell, Glyn Davis

Glyn Davis

Glyn Conrad Davis, AC is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne.- Early life :Professor Davis was educated at Marist Brothers College, Kogarah...

, Creed O'Hanlon, David Burchell

David Burchell

David Burchell is a senior lecturer in humanities at the University of Western Sydney and a regular columnist for The Australian. He has also contributed articles to the Australian Financial Review and Griffith Review....

, and Murray Sayle

Murray Sayle

Murray William Sayle OAM was an Australian journalist, novelist and adventurer.A native of Sydney, Sayle moved to London in 1952. He was a foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times in the late 1960s and early 1970s...

, with other major contributors including Margaret Simons

Margaret Simons

Margaret Simons is an Australian academic, freelance journalist and author. She is currently the media commentator for Crikey and has written ten books.-Career:...

, David Malouf

David Malouf

David George Joseph Malouf is an acclaimed Australian writer. He was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2000, his 1993 novel Remembering Babylon won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, he won the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award in 2008, and he was...

, Marcia Langton

Marcia Langton

Marcia Lynne Langton is one of Australia's leading Aboriginal scholars. She holds the Foundation Chair in Australian Indigenous Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia...

, Peter Beattie

Peter Beattie

Peter Douglas Beattie , Australian politician, was the 36th Premier of the Australian state of Queensland for nine years and leader of the Australian Labor Party in that state for eleven and a half years...

 and Michael Wesley

Michael Wesley

Michael Wesley is an Australian academic and currently works as Executive Director of the Lowy Institute for International Policy. Prior to joining the Lowy Institute, he was Director of the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University....

.

Of the first issue, Griffith REVIEW 1: Insecurity in the New World Order, academic Cica wrote that "Analysis sits comfortably with anecdote and art".

Recognition

The Griffith Review has won national awards for essays advancing public debate, is regularly syndicated in major newspapers and forms the basis of ABC Radio broadcasts. Essays and stories from the Review are have been included in Best Australian Essays, Best Australian Stories collections. An anthology of memoirs published in the Review was published as A Revealed Life: Australian Writers and their Journey in Memoir by ABC Books in 2007.

Awards

• 2007 Victorian Premier's Literary Award
  Victorian Premier's Literary Award
  The Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were created by the Victorian Governmentwith the aim of raising the profile of contemporary creative writing and Australia's publishing industry....
  
   - Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate was awarded to Frank Moorhouse
  Frank Moorhouse
  Frank Moorhouse is an acclaimed Australian writer with a growing international reputation. He has won major Australian national prizes for the short story, the novel, the essay, and for script writing....
  
   for "The Writer in a Time of Terror" (Griffith Review, Edition 14: The Trouble With Paradise)
• 2007 Walkley Award for Excellence in Journalism
  Walkley Awards
  The annual Walkley Awards, under the administration of the Walkley Foundation for Journalism, are presented in Australia to recognise and reward excellence in journalism. Finalists are chosen by an independent board of eminent journalists and photographers. The awards cover all media including...
  
  magazine feature writing category finalist - Margaret Simons
  Margaret Simons
  Margaret Simons is an Australian academic, freelance journalist and author. She is currently the media commentator for Crikey and has written ten books.-Career:...
  
  for her essay "Buried in the Labyrinth" (Griffith Review, Edition 16: Unintended Consequences)