 Patrons
of the Future
Ms Elisabeth Holdsworth
A Romantic Patron since 2007
When
did you start reading ABR?
Several lifetimes ago. In the government offices where I worked,
ABR lay around
with the New Yorker and the London Review of Books.
I assumed, because ABR offered a similar quality of reading
experience, that the magazine enjoyed the
same level of financial resources!
Why
does cultural philanthropy matter to you?
A life without books, music and the opportunity to visit galleries,
great houses and gardens would be colourless. Insupportable. Similarly,
the freedom to express one’s view about those experiences
is, to me, an inalienable right.
Yet in the past I have given little thought to the day-to-day
lives of arts practitioners. Cultural philanthropy ensures the
survival of those pleasures that it is so easy to take for granted.
The smallest donation is an investment in our future as Australians,
our society.
Why
ABR in particular?
As the first recipient of ABR’s major prize, it
is time for me to give back. Fortunately, this desire to ‘give
back’ has coincided with an inheritance. Last year I was
an anonymous patron. This year I am ‘out’.
What
do you enjoy most about the magazine?
I read the magazine as follows: first the stoushes in the
Letters pages, then Advances, poems and essays. Lastly, I pick
and peck around the reviews. I always read the ‘stud book’
at the back with close attention.
Elisabeth
Holdsworth was born in the Netherlands and moved to Australia
in the late 1950s. For many years she worked for the Department
of Defence. She is well known to ABR
readers as the author of the remarkable essay ‘An
Die Nachgeborenen:
For Those Who Come After’, which won the inaugural Calibre
Prize in 2007. Currently she is writing a novel called New
Holland.
If you wish to become a Patron, please contact the Editor, Peter
Rose, on (03) 9429 6700 or at abr@vicnet.net.au.
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We
have speculated in the past about literature’s relative slowness
to foster the sort of cultural philanthropy that is a mainstay of
art galleries, libraries, museums, symphony orchestras and theatre
companies. Why this has been the case may be of interest to literary
historians, but meanwhile ABR is keen to get on with the
task of generating private support for the cause of good writing,
independent critique and a lively intellectual climate.
Sponsors, advertisers, government ministries, the Australia Council
and, above all, our loyal subscribers keep ABR in print,
but our resources are miniscule by comparison with similar national
literary reviews in Europe and North America.
In order to pay our writers better, to attract new ones, to introduce
new features, to present additional and more lucrative prizes, and
to contemplate extracurricular publishing projects and events, we
need more money – simple as that. This support is crucial if
we are to maximise ABR’s undoubted potential.
Accordingly, we have much pleasure in announcing the ABR
Patrons’ Scheme, full details of which appear here. We encourage
our readers – indeed, all passionate believers in literary
values – to consider becoming founding ABR Patrons.
This discerning cohort will have the satisfaction of knowing that
its generosity will help to entrench and diversify the magazine
for serious readers and writers.
For information
about the Patrons' programme,
please contact click
here.
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