Since announcing her decision to pass on the Galah baton after two more issues, Galah's editor Annabelle Hickson gives readers an update on the next steps.
Since announcing my decision to pass the Galah baton after two more issues, I've had some very interesting conversations that more or less fit into two buckets.
Conversations in the first bucket started with the best intentions and joyous emails like this: "Almost immediately, I forwarded your email to my friend with a multiple-choice quiz to gauge her interest in putting forward a team approach to you (to run Galah). The first four options related mostly to the possibility that I was mad, or day drinking, or both, and the last suggested we meet for a chat. She chose E."
But ultimately, most of these sorts of conversations went nowhere because, as much as I'd love someone who writes a sentence like this to take on Galah, most people in bucket 1 didn't have cash at the ready to buy Galah and invest in it, or have an existing business on which to piggyback it.
If Galah is going to continue under someone else's captaincy, I want to make sure they have the resources – financial and/or structural – to keep it running well.
Then there are the bucket 2 types of conversations. The ones where NDAs are involved with people who know that a business like Galah takes a certain amount of capital to run, and they still wanted to talk.
These are the really exciting ones.
It's way too early for anything concrete, but if any of these conversations turn into something real, the future for Galah could be great. Galah 2.0 could be bigger and better than anything I could have done under my own steam.
I'll keep you posted if anything promising solidifies, but in the meantime, I've put together a reader survey which I would love you to do to help shape the future of Galah.
Your answers will show what you value most about Galah – what's working, what's not and what you wish existed – which will be of great interest to anyone looking at taking on Galah in the future.
This survey is anonymous and should take about 10 minutes.
Time is the most precious thing, and any efforts to do the survey should be rewarded. As a token of my gratitude, if you complete the survey, you'll go in the running for some Galah prizes, including an impossible-to-buy complete set of Galah issues 1-12. I'll randomly select the winners on 15 August.
May there be VIP spots reserved in the afterlife for those of you who do the survey. Thank you in advance.
I'd also like to thank the many of you who wrote and called after I sent my last email congratulating me on all that Galah has been up until now. I got a bit overwhelmed receiving such kindness that I stuck my head in the sand and replied to almost no one. Please know your words have moved me greatly.
And while all of this is going on, we're in the throes of production for Issue 13, which is going to be superb. Excellent writing, excellent photography – it's coming together very nicely. Subscribing or pre-ordering upcoming issues is another hugely appreciated way to support Galah. Our current subscription offer covers Issue 13 (on sale 6 November) and Issue 14 (on sale early April 2026), delivered to your door free of shipping costs.
Until next month,
Annabelle
It's been eons since I shared any recommendations, but these school holidays just gone were spent at home reading, cooking and eating and I offer these morsels in the spirit of sharing good things.
I Want Everything, an excellent debut novel by Australian writer Dominic Amerena.
Care and Feeding by Laurie Woolever, a memoir encompassing two of my favourite topics: chefs and addiction.
The Fence: a quarterly print mag with no photos – just words and illustrations – out of London. It is vibrant and modern and funny and edgy. A hugely exciting example of what a modern print media platform can be.
Christopher Kimball's recipes never let me down and this one for skillet spaghetti carbonara is the bomb. No cream. Just starchy pasta water, pancetta and cheese, glorious cheese. It's my son's favourite dinner, and who am I to deny him?
Sydneysider Lucy Tweed has an excellent Instagram account called Every Night of the Week. This raucous sausage swill was super easy and delicious. If you are haunted by memories of boiled curried sausages, fear not. This is something else entirely.
I've been going hard on focaccia, both the making of it and the eating huge chunks of it. Sometimes smothered in butter melted with garlic, other times with pecans and herbs from the garden mixed into the dough as it rises. No matter what goes in, whenever I'm making focaccia I think of Sophie Hansen, who makes a lot of focaccia. This is her recipe for overnight focaccia with instant yeast. It's a great foundation onto which you can riff all sorts of focaccia experiments. And in other great news, Soph has started work on a new cookbook. It will be her sixth. Brava.
