Up until the late 1960s the story of Australian literary magazines was one of continuing struggle against the odds, and of the efforts of individuals, such as Clem Christesen, Stephen Murray-Smith, and Max Harris. During that time, the magazines played the role of 'enfant terrible', creating a space where unpopular opinions and writers were allowed a voice. The magazines have very often been ahead of their time and some of the agendas they have pursued have become 'central' to representations, where once they were marginal. Broadly, 'little' magazines have often been more influential than their small circulations would first indicate, and the author's argument is that they have played a valuable role in the promotion of Australian literature.

Phillip Edmonds�s Tilting at Windmills: The Literary Magazine in Australia 1968-2012, arrives, then, at in interesting moment. Edmonds is a lecturer at the University of Adelaide and a former editor of literary magazines, including Adelaide�s Wet Ink. He is a thoughtful partisan for Australian journals, and if his scholarly rigour sometimes obscures the wilder shores of the little magazine scene in recent decades, there is enough drollery and anecdote left to indicate just how dynamic and plain good fun Ozlit culture has been over time. (...) Edmonds�s monograph is quietly passionate about the enduring worth of literary magazines. It is also, as is appropriate for a man who has devoted many years to their production and dissemination, a rolling elegy. He knows that our national circumstances have hamstrung the possibility of a more established literary culture.'

Geordie Williamson Source: The Weekend Australian

Rather than producing a flawless work of scholarship, Edmonds has written an actual book that�just like literary journals it analyses�would interest actual readers, rather than insiders and academics. It is compulsory for anyone who cares about contemporary Australian literature.'

Emmett Stinson Source: Sydney Review of Books

The title of Phillip Edmond's survey of literary magazines from 1968-2012, Tilting at Windmills signals that his subject is a quixotic, but also brave and unquenchable enterprise.'