We are so very back.
After a short hiatus from the glimmer and glamour of student media spotlights, we (digitally) travelled down the Hume Highway to meet our friends over at Lot’s Wife. Hailing from Monash University, the newspaper-turned-magazine has been the purveyor of student media since 1964.
In the lead up to the much anticipated Student Media Conference taking place on the last weekend of September, we were eager to meet and understand more of our interstate media comrades. For this spotlight, we spoke with Mandy Li and Angus Duske, two out of the three editors who make up the Lot’s Wife’s 2024 editorial team. Both Mandy and Angus are second year Arts/Law students, but their editor roles vary: while Mandy takes on the administrative side of running the magazine, Angus is responsible for written content.
Our Zoom started with a friendly shared appreciation for working out of an office with no windows, and quickly progressed into a conversation concerning what inspired the editors’ interest in student media.
“I had an interest in Lot’s Wife because I have a big background in media, film, performing arts and creative writing”, Mandy told Honi. “My interests are in reading, journalism, playing guitar, and writing a lot. I [also] like to sit in dog parks and watch dogs.”
Angus joined us about 20 minutes into the interview, just as the conversation moved towards the archives and history of Lot’s Wife. He recently oversaw the collation of the magazine’s archives, in preparation for their 60 year anniversary as a publication.
Asking about how the magazine’s name came about — and noting the controversy over the name — we learnt that Lot’s Wife was originally named Chaos. Due to a “messy, sexist and chaotic run”, the original paper lasted two years before being renamed to its current moniker.
For those who need brushing up on their biblical proficiency, the name Lot’s Wife is derived from the tale of Lot and his disobedient wife, who turned into a pillar of salt while looking back at the destruction of Sodom. According to Mandy this name change symbolised “never looking back on Chaos…and its insidious history that was far too controversial for a student media publication.”
Throughout its existence, the paper has been in a feud with Herald Sun, faced unexpected resignations and navigated the universal tremors of Voluntary Student Unionism. Despite its many controversies, Lot’s Wife has boasted being a countercultural and secular paper that reported on the Vietnam War, student unionism and Victorian politics.
A history of activism is not surprising for a Monash publication, the editors revealed, with Mandy highlighting that Monash used to be known as a “really rebellious and protest-based university”. Angus acquiesced, telling Honi that the university “actually used to be more known for protesting rather than academics and that bled into Lot’s Wife naturally”.
Speaking on the publication’s 60-year history, the editors reflected on the once-contested and controversial paper through to their periodical magazine today. Lot’s Wife’s publication functions a little more sporadically than some of the other student publications we’ve talked to this year.
Initially operating as a weekly newspaper, Lot’s Wife moved to a fortnightly paper in 1971, but publication times fluctuated due to funding and printing and censorship issues. In 1998, the paper moved to a periodical as a result of further funding cuts. The introduction of Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU) further slashed budgets and the publication moved to its current magazine/journal format in 2010, with a brief broadsheet stint in 2011.
According to the editors, Lot’s Wife is a mix between newspaper, periodical and journal, and is “never strictly aligned to one.” As a contributions-based magazine, this year has seen a pretty even split between nonfiction and fiction pieces. Regular editions can be found in print, with the number of pages ranging from 48 to 60 based on the number of submissions they receive. The number of editions published every year, however, varies, and is very much dependent on budget allocation as per the decision of the editorial team that year. “Last year there were five editions,” Mandy explained; this year, they are doing six.
As with Honi, editors of Lot’s Wife run on a ticket and need to be elected by the Monash student body. Unlike Honi tickets however, Lot’s Wife editorial tickets have no number caps, meaning there can be as many editors on them as the ticket wants. Mandy noted that there were twelve editors in 2019, and five last year. The elected editors have a shared stipend that they split evenly amongst themselves.
When asked about the design and editorial decisions of Lot’s Wife, Angus noted that “every year has brought a different torch” to the publication. Reflecting on the 80s and 90s era of the paper, he stated that “there are periods where people look back, but every year the editors have brought something new to the table, be it a formatting change or a column.
“For example, the editors in 1981 where the two of them the night before layup would review a bottle of wine and write a column of their review. We should bring that back, that was fun”.
The career pathways of Lots Wife’s alumni are quite varying. Mandy revealed a tendency of past editors and contributors to rise the ranks of Victorian politics. One such case is Peter Costello, a former contributor whose political pipeline is one to behold; once praising compulsory student unionism in a Lot’s Wife article, he went on to become treasurer of the Howard government,later slashing it. Other notable alumni include Antony Loewenstein, Julian Hill, Rachel Griffith, Karina Garland and Peter Steidman.
Historically, student media in Victoria has experienced fluctuating health. The Victorian Intercampus Edition (VICE), a joint collaboration between Lot’s Wife and Farrago, came onto the scene in 1966. A first multi platform VICE was seen in 1990 — the publication combining the journalistic efforts of Lot’s Wife, Farrago (University of Melbourne), SEED (Victoria University), Naked Wasp (Caulfield Institute of Technology) and Rabelaise (La Trobe) — published out of necessity due to a wide lack of funding in student publications.
When asked about their vision for the future of the magazine, Mandy said, “I wish the heart of student media and student journalism is brought back to Lot’s Wife. We wish to cultivate more campus culture and write about campus issues. That is one of our biggest dreams.”
For Lot’s Wife, the value of campus culture is abundantly clear despite its alleged decline. The sentiment is that student media represent more than a vehicle for expression but rather holds a mirror to the state of their tertiary education, be it the good, the bad and the ugly.
We look forward to meeting our windowless office editors very soon at the Student Media Conference.
