"Destination" announced my GPS with its usual nasal-electronic twang. Straight ahead Balmain Road looked to peter out; to my left was a lane overgrown with weeds; to my right was an opening heralded by a boom gate with flaking white paint that looked like it hadn't lowered in twenty years. A dark green wooden sign adorned by a single streamer announced that I should turn here if I wanted to find the NSW Writers' Centre.
As my car crunches over the worn out tarmac I feel in the pit of my stomach that I should've checked this place out before sending my daughter off here with a friend this morning. I was driving through the grounds of a long disused hospital with old sandstone buildings surrounded by fibro shacks, demountables and signs of abandonment everywhere. I assure myself that if anything was amiss I would've had a concerned phone call by now, from the friend who drove the girls.
It's now 2.45pm and I'm looking for the building, amongst the thirty or so I can see, that has held my daughter and two of her friends in a creative writing class for the day. I pull into a makeshift carpark next to an abandoned demountable and see this sign ahead. I am irrationally relieved to note that some care has been taken to print this sign with its deliberately placed apostrophe. I am also buoyed by the sight of recently installed, expensive-looking, outdoor lighting - the sort seen on tennis courts in Toorak or Killara - as if this is a sign that my daughter is in good hands.
As instructed by the sign I walk around to the front of the building, past the book-binding room and a small library, to find a charming building filled with signs of bookiness. Bookiness on a budget. The verandah was filled with plastic tables and metal chairs with flaking paint, possibly of the same vintage as the boom gate I came through earlier.
Inside twenty 9-13 year olds were taking turns to stand up and read from their day's work. Unfortunately, I had just missed Blossom's recital. I'm sure this was quite deliberate on her part. I can imagine her hand went up like a shot to volunteer to read first when she saw I wasn't in the room yet. The other readings, however, were delightful. The convenor, Frances Watts*, had obviously spent a lot of time working with descriptiveness as we heard about a dress that "was so heavy that it almost pulled me backwards" and a Magpie whose "underside of his wing shone like the golden ring he was carrying."
And while there were variations on the theme, not one young author "woke up to find it was all a dream".
*Frances Watts convened this session as part of the Sydney Writers' Festival.
As my car crunches over the worn out tarmac I feel in the pit of my stomach that I should've checked this place out before sending my daughter off here with a friend this morning. I was driving through the grounds of a long disused hospital with old sandstone buildings surrounded by fibro shacks, demountables and signs of abandonment everywhere. I assure myself that if anything was amiss I would've had a concerned phone call by now, from the friend who drove the girls.
It's now 2.45pm and I'm looking for the building, amongst the thirty or so I can see, that has held my daughter and two of her friends in a creative writing class for the day. I pull into a makeshift carpark next to an abandoned demountable and see this sign ahead. I am irrationally relieved to note that some care has been taken to print this sign with its deliberately placed apostrophe. I am also buoyed by the sight of recently installed, expensive-looking, outdoor lighting - the sort seen on tennis courts in Toorak or Killara - as if this is a sign that my daughter is in good hands.
And while there were variations on the theme, not one young author "woke up to find it was all a dream".
*Frances Watts convened this session as part of the Sydney Writers' Festival.
9 comments:
I tell my students that Ms Frogdancer is allergic to the dream ending in stories, and so if I ever get one, it [proves that the author is trying to kill me and so they'll fail.
Works every time!
Ahhh...yes, writers know where to put apostrophes. But can we say the same about the directors?
Perhaps we shall wake up and find out apostrophe abuse is all a bad dream.
Your description of the grounds of Callam Park hospital is fantastic. I used to live a few blocks away and everyday I walked through the very gate you described on my way to the waters' edge to do the Bay Run. I love the fact that it is spooky and run down, but had never thought of it as threatening.
Glad you found the beautiful building that houses the Writers' Centre. I've been to a few weddings there.
Back in the day (in our mothers' (oh where should that damn apostrophe go?!) and grandmothers' day) I would have been locked in one of those scary looking buildings for the rest of my natural life. That's what they did to post-natally depressed women.
Shudder
This is so beautifully written (you usually do so, I hasten to add) Are you sure she wasn't the only one atendingthe creative writing workshop? (I'd go!)
What a great opportunity for your girl. I hope that the 'out of the way' venue doesn't reflect our valuing of education, but I think it does. I can't imagine there are many 'out of the way' football grounds in Australia.
Urgh! After all my posturing on apostrophes I inflict my own unforgiveable apostrophe abuse. You were all too kind to point it out. Fixed now. phew.
Fairlie: so true about the Directors/s' Guild...
Fe: Thanks! I wouldn't find the location disturbing a second time, however not knowing the area I expected the Rozelle Hospital to be a working hospital - not a former hospital site (Hence my shock in turning into a weed strewn entrance...).
Abandoned buildings are never up to any good. I know this because I read. You do too and that is why you were freaked out. I love that your daughter is attending a writing class. Sometimes it seems to me that creative endeavors are being left by the wayside in pursuit of more competitive things.
So true, Melinda! I kept thinking Spiderwick Chronicles and all the other stories where abandoned buildings feature large... Good for creativity 'though don't you think!
How lovely to read about this event. My 10yo cousin from Campbelltown attended too - it sounded great!
Post a Comment