About

Welcome to The Circular!

The Circular keeps the best new Australian non-fiction in circulation; essays, interviews, reviews, features and more.

We reached the end of our pilot year in October 2022 and are currently taking a break. We hope to launch the next iteration of The Circular sometime in 2023.

What does The Circular do? Each week we dispatch a newsletter that rounds up the most interesting, useful and surprising non-fiction published by and about Australian writers. Sign up to discover a world of Australian writing that is curated by a person, not by a social media algorithm.

We know that great writing can go viral - but much more frequently, great writing sinks quickly into deep digital archives. When we talk to readers, they tell us they’re worried about missing out on what’s being published in Australian literary journals and magazines. There’s so much new work being published everyday – and yet often it’s the same names and themes that are prioritised by search engines and social media algorithms. Often, readers are surprised to learn about the range and quality of Australian literary culture online. Each week The Circular will put a rich, complex and diverse account of contemporary Australian literature into circulation.

Our team

Tiffany Tsao was the founding editor of The Circular.

Tiffany is a writer and literary translator who brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to our organisation. Her third novel, Under Your Wings, was longlisted for the 2019 Ned Kelly Award and released abroad as The Majesties. She translates Indonesian fiction and poetry into English, and her work was awarded a 2018 PEN Translates grant and shortlisted for the 2021 NSW Premier’s Translation Prize. She has a Ph.D. in English from UC-Berkeley. She was a country editor of the groundbreaking journal of translation, Asymptote, between 2014 and 2018 and is currently translations editor at InterSastra.

Tiffany worked with the SRB editorial team to deliver The Circular. Catriona Menzies-Pike is the editor of the SRB and Alice Desmond is our digital editor. Find out more about the SRB.

Guest editors

The Circular periodically invites guest editors to curate issues of our newsletter.

Who funds this project?

The Circular is supported by the Australia Council’s Sector Recovery Initiative fund. The Sydney Review of Books is funded by Western Sydney University, the Australia Council, the Copyright Agency, Create NSW, the Ian Potter Foundation, the City of Sydney and reader donations. 

Can I become a supporter?

The Sydney Review of Books has always been committed to open-access publishing – and we bring that commitment to The Circular. We want our newsletter and website to circulate freely. We’ll never charge subscription fees. If you want to support the work we do at the SRB and The Circular, find out how to make a donation.

Questions?

Contact us on editor@thecircular.com.au

The Circular is a project of The Sydney Review of Books. We’re supported by the Australia Council’s Sector Recovery Initiative fund.

We send a weekly newsletter featuring the most interesting, useful and surprising recent non-fiction published by and about Australian writers.

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which we work, the Burramattagal people of the Darug nation, and pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging. Sovereignty was never ceded, and the struggles for justice are ongoing. We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands this digital platform reaches.