The success of the 39th edition of Griffith Review Tasmania – The Tipping Point? continues as the publication goes into its second reprint after generating almost $3 million in publicity.
The Australian tour of Griffith Review 39: Tasmania — The Tipping Point?, a collaboration between Griffith Review and the University of Tasmania, continues this month at the Sydney Writers’ Festival.
The free event Tasmania — The Soft Power of Culture is on Sunday 26 May, 10 am, Sydney Dance 2, Pier 4/5, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay and is being promoted as:
Tasmania is the new black. Even Lonely Planet has feted Hobart as one of the top ten cities to visit in 2013. Natasha Cica, co-editor of Griffith REVIEW: Tasmania — The Tipping Point?, leads a discussion with contributors Scott Rankin and Kathy Marks about the soft power of Tasmanian culture — MONA, theatre, food, cooking, design, the environmental movement, and the legacy of Aboriginal history — and how it has changed the state of Tasmania. Or has it?’
Since its national launch in Hobart’s Town Hall in early February by the Vice-Chancellor of UTAS and the Premier of Tasmania, the range of perspectives in Tasmania — The Tipping Point? has sparked a national conversation about Tasmania’s future. Subsequent events in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane and Adelaide have attracted capacity crowds.
The first print run sold out within two weeks of publication. Within three weeks it was the number-five bestseller at independent bookstores nationally, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. A second reprint is now in train, and the edition is trending to become Griffith Review’s top seller to date.
Tasmania — The Tipping Point? has generated almost $3 million worth of publicity, according to Inglis Clark Centre for Civil Society, University of Tasmania, indicating that culture and ideas are a maturing Tasmanian export industry.
This has included a major and positive review by Peter Pierce in The Age, calling the edition ‘outstanding’; a review in The Herald Sun (circulation over 455,000) calling it ‘a literary treat’; and discussion of the issue on Radio National’s Big Ideas, Late Night Live, Counterpoint and Nightlife, and ABC TV’s Q&A. The issue was the basis of a Tasmanian-focused series in The Conversation, and the extract of contributor Jonathan West’s essay was the second top story so far this year on crikey.com.
Since publication of the print edition, Griffith Review has published an additional selection of essays online.
Griffith REVIEW 40: WOMEN & POWER is out now.