After 14 issues and almost six years at the helm of Galah, editor Annabelle Hickson is hanging up her boots.
Galah began during drought. Dust. Exhaustion. My children were small. Our pecan trees were saplings, and my brain was hijacked by an all-consuming urge to make something about the many interesting lives being lived outside the cities. Something ambitious. Something generous. Something alive to complexity.
Six years later, our pecan trees are tall and shady, sheep graze underneath them, and my children are away at boarding school. Everything has grown. I have, too.
After 14 issues, this one marks the end of my time as editor-in-chief.
At the time of writing this letter, I'm not 100 per cent sure about Galah's future. There is one exciting conversation underway about the next chapter. Nothing is settled yet. I’m not attached to Galah continuing at any cost, but what I do care about is that strong, ambitious stories continue to come out of regional Australia. The group I’m talking to has the skills, the energy and above all, the care. Now they're working on building a sustainable business model. I’ll share updates via this newsletter and Instagram as things unfold.
But back to us. I am proud of what we have made in Galah. And I say “we” because this magazine has always been a collective effort. It belongs to the people who trusted us with their stories. To the writers, photographers and editors who made it extraordinary. To the readers, from the country and the city, who bought issue after issue, came to events across the country, and rang friends to say, “I think you’d love this.”
What seems to bind us is a belief that life in regional Australia is creative, diverse, surprising and full of opportunity.
Whatever happens next with Galah, these 14 issues stand as a record of what’s possible when regional stories are treated with ambition, seriousness and joy.
On a personal note, I’m heading into new work territory that is more about depth than scale. I’m publishing a book about the brilliant Tenterfield gardener Carolyn Robinson, who has appeared in Galah twice already, but it's not enough. I want her lifetime of lessons learned in the garden to be out there in the world, in long form.
While it’s time for me to change direction, Galah exists because thousands of people believed in it. If it has widened the frame for regional Australia even a little, if it has encouraged new voices or bolder ideas, then we’ve done good work. There is still good work to be done, and I'll cheer on from the sidelines everyone who is committed to telling stories from regional Australia, whether under the Galah masthead or elsewhere.
Thank you for being part of Galah. If you'd like to order a copy of my last issue, you can pre-order it now. It's going to sell out quickly and it's an issue I am extremely proud of.
Annabelle
A version of this letter appears in Galah Issue 14, on sale in April 2026. Pre-orders are open now.
Pre-orders (with free shipping) close at midnight Tuesday 17 March 2026. Issue 14 ships ahead of its on-sale date of Monday 13 April 2026.
Whether for a reason, a season, or a lifetime, friends are a lifeline in bad times, laughter in good times – the antidote for all life’s absurdities. In this issue, we talk to friends about the ties that bind them. We go gardening beside rivers and railway tracks, marvel at architectural modernism in the bush, investigate a little valley with big ambitions, and go hunting wild bees. We get obsessed with Taylor Swift, baby wombats and tiny museums. And handmade paper. Plus there’s a swag of Galah-inspired ideas, art, books and travel. And baby wombats.
