This is the independent voice Australia needs. The Monthly, a national magazine of politics, society and the arts, arrived in 2005. It is published by the people who bring you Black Inc. books and the Quarterly Essay. It is unlike any Australian publication that has come and gone before.

The Monthly is intelligent and inquisitive, witty and wise. It doesn’t dumb down or suck up. The Monthly is rooted in simple but powerful storytelling. It doesn’t moan, or earbash, or take itself too seriously. The Monthly gives space to long essays and thoughtful reviews, to investigative journalism and zingy reportage, to bold photography and a brash design. It doesn’t get bogged down in bloated columns by boring hacks. The Monthly is human.

Only Australia’s best writers light up The Monthly’s stage: Helen Garner, Don Watson, John Birmingham, Mungo MacCallum, Shane Maloney, Ashley Hay, Drusilla Modjeska, Clive James, Gideon Haigh, Amanda Lohrey, Chloe Hooper, Malcolm Knox, Robert Manne. The Monthly dares them to get mud on their laptops. If Australia’s existing magazines are stuck in a rut, growing fatter yet thinner, then The Monthly is like a free-spirited friend who comes to visit, full of stories, insight, wit and surprise.

The times cry out for an intelligent, independent voice. The long wait is over.