On Festivals and Blogmeets

I have always held the Melbourne Writers Festival in the highest regard and would look forward to the one weekend each year that I would listen to interesting authors talk about interesting books and then watch with amusement as they leer at the author-groupies from the bar after their session had finished. After all what's a party without the people-watching?

Melbourne had the advantage over Sydney of an intimate space, a central gathering area for groupies, I mean festival-goers, and plenty of good, cheap and quick food options to munch on between sessions.

This year the MWF moved from the Malthouse in South Melbourne to Fed Square. An impressive location, to be sure, but lacking in the intimacy of the old Festival.

The venues were mixed. This one, the BMWEdge was spectacular, but cavernous. Great for large groups of people but if 100 people gathered to listen to an emerging author it was just plain awkward.

The central atrium was also spectacular. But without the convenience of hawker-style food we had to go to restaurants and cafes to eat and so festival goers were locked away rather than milling around the central court.

But, I hear you say, writers festivals are all about the writers aren't they? Yes, mostly. Or mostly mostly. But the choice of writers wasn't spectacular either. I find myself choking and gasping as I have to admit that when it comes to a Festival of Writers this year Sydney has pipped Melbourne at the post as the best party.

Sorry.

If Melbourne doesn't pull its socks up I'm afraid I'm going to have to plug for a weekend at the Byron Bay Writers Festival.

For a full wrap up of the festival, including the best bits (there were some good bits) check out Fairlie's excellent summary.

Melbourne did, however, outdo itself in the Blogmeet stakes. Fairlie organised a dinner for Melbourne bloggers and we were delighted to catch up with Frogdancer, H&B, Suse from PeaSoup and Stomper Girl. You can tell there was non-stop chatting because despite being at the restaurant for four hours we managed only one course and glass of wine, or two; and we completely forgot to take photos. These great bloggers came from all over Melbourne to this dinner and a great time was had by all.

To those who couldn't make it this time - I'd love to catch up next time I'm in the Great Southern City.

Sunning it at the Egremont Writers Festival

There’s nothing like a writers festival to make you feel uneducated and poorly read. Quite apart from being unable to laugh at the subtle references to Proust or Kafka I am challenged, from day one, to draw a grammatical line in the sand by having to take sides on the Great Apostrophe Debate. Is it a Writer’s, or Writers’ Festival? I usually give up and leave the apostrophe out altogether. The MSWord grammar checker, BTW, wants it to be “Writer’s”.

Apart from this, writers festivals are not the preserve of the literary elite. They are one of the best ways to expand the range of books you read because there is nothing like hearing an author read from his or own book, or listening to them talk about why they write like they do.

This weekend I flew down to attend the last weekend of the Melbourne Writers Festival. I stayed with Fairlie and attended a total of nine sessions with Fairlie and, on Sunday, with Fairlie and Domestic Goddess. I was curious about how I would view this festival after four years away replacing it with the Sydney version. Fairlie has covered the sessions we attended in depth so here is my overall summary:

• The layout was much better than previous years. Setting up the bookshop in a marquee outside was a master stroke.


• The MWF is a much more intimate event than Sydney but has much less of a festival atmosphere. I wonder how this will change when it moves to Fed Square next year.


• It’s very tempting to buy the sausage sandwich for lunch but much kinder to your fellow attendees if you don’t.


• I’m sorry GossipPop but I just don’t get you. Perhaps if I read Kafka or Proust I would. But I doubt it.


• Alexis Wright has written Carpentaria in the voice of a male aboriginal elder; Adrian Hyland has written Diamond Dove in the voice of a 26yo female aboriginal woman and Gail Jones just has a squeaky voice. All seek to give voice to our indigenous people.


• Mark Crick wrote in 14 famous voices in Kafka’s Soup and did a great job at all of them.


• I thought there was going to be fisty cuffs on stage during the “Politics of Atheism” discussion between Val Noone and A C Grayling. But Grayling didn’t bite. Shame.


• The mob from Victoria University who were supposed to talk about creating identities in an online world had no idea what they were talking about.


• Visa Dockets are a perfectly rational source of notepaper. As are the backs of invitations to Quaker meetings.


• Alexander McCall Smith, Michael Robotham and Adrian Hyland all live surrounded by females and assume female personae in their books. AMS does, however, have a male cat.


• Katie Hickman was fascinating on the subject of Courtesans. She tells us that Lord William Melbourne, from whom Melbourne gets its name, is widely rumoured to have been the product of an affair between Lady Melbourne and Lord Egremont. So in a parallel universe we may in fact have attended the Egremont Writers Festival.
  

So what books did I think I might put on my TBR pile:

Courtesans by Katie Hickman
The Night Ferry by Michael Robotham
Diamond Dove by Adrian Hyland
Carpentaria by Alexis Wright

And perhaps

Caravan Story by Wayne Macauley


and finally, only readers of Kafka will find this funny:

“All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers is contained in this blog”

Don’t get it? Don’t blame you. See the original quote here.