Sport

Entry from The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, edited by Roger Robinson and Nelson Wattie (1998).

Sport is a literary magazine which has been published twice yearly since October 1988. It was launched in part to fill the gap left by Islands, which although not officially folded had not appeared for some time. Lessons were also drawn from the examples of the designedly marginal and short-lived AND and Rambling Jack.

From the start it was intended that Sport would be a substantial, professionally edited and produced paperback, which would appear regularly, take a visible place in bookshops and find a general readership.

According to John Thomson in the OHNZLE (1991, 1998), Sport 'at once established itself as currently the leading magazine for poetry and fiction'. Publisher and editor Fergus Barrowman founded Sport with editorial support from Elizabeth Knox, Damien Wilkins and Nigel Cox.

Later issues have been guest- or co-edited by James Brown (13, 14, 16, 18- ), Andrew Johnston (6-9), Gregory O'Brien (15) and Sara Knox (17). Barrowman is also publisher of Victoria University Press, and Sport has featured many writers from the so-called 'Wellington group' associated with VUP and Bill Manhire's [author] Victoria University creative writing course.

The first issue featured early work by Barbara Anderson, Jenny Bornholdt, Anne Kennedy, Elizabeth Knox, Virginia Were, Wilkins and Forbes Williams, as well as established writers such as Cox, Keri Hulme, Manhire and Vincent O'Sullivan.

Sport has continued to give a large amount of space to new writers. It was the first publisher of Emily Perkins and Catherine Chidgey, and an early publisher of Kate Flannery, Annamarie Jagose, Chris Orsman and Peter Wells.

Sport has published occasional review essays, but not reviews, editorials, letters or other features of the traditional literary quarterly. The average size of the issues has been 160 pages, and the paid circulation is maintained between 500 and 600 copies. (FB)

Sport is now published annually. For subscriptions and enquiries, phone 04 463 6526, fax 04 463 6581, email fergus.barrowman@vuw.ac.nz or visit www.sportmagazine.org