The Monthly Jaivin, Clive James, Kate Jennings, Paul Kelly, Benjamin Law, Amanda Lohrey, Mungo MacCallum, Shane Maloney, Robert Manne, David Marr, Maxine McKew, Drusilla Modjeska, Peter Robb, Kevin Rudd, Margaret Simons, Tim Soutphommasane, Lindsay Tanner, Malcolm Turnbull and Don Watson. Essays The magazine generally publishes essays 3,000 to 6,000 words long. The cover stories "Being There", Mark McKenna's investigation of key Australian historian Manning Clark, and Wendi Deng Murdoch, Eric Ellis's profile of the then-wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch were around 10,000 words long. Early in 2006, "The Monthly" published "Information Idol: How Google is making us stupid" by Gideon Haigh,
Sun Deng (recluse) around 257, and Xi Kang's around 258 to 260. Based on the different mountain names, Chan (1996: 151, 158) says Ruan Ji visited Sun Deng twice, first around 226-230, and then around 255-263; and dates Xi Kang's travels at around 249-251. The anonymous (c. 8th century) "Xiaozhi" 嘯旨 "Principles of Whistling" mentions Sun Deng and Ruan Ji—honorifically called Sun Gong 孫公 "Master Sung" and Ruan Sizong 阮嗣宗 (his courtesy name)—as the last transcendental whistlers, and describes whistling tunes attributed to them, "Sumen Mountains" retells the story of Ruan's visit to Sun, and "Loose Rhymes of Ruan" is an easy-whistling melody.