Small corner of Floriade 2011: tulips among the gum trees
You could all be looking at tulips …
said Kate Grenville, the first speaker at today’s Canberra Readers’ Festival. She was referring to Floriade, Canberra‘s popular, crowd-drawing annual spring festival, and the fact that today was a glorious day. Just right, in fact, for tiptoeing through the festival’s stunning tulip beds. But instead, we keen readers were in the Playhouse listening to our favourite authors talk about writing and reading. After all, like Scarlett O’Hara, we all knew that “tomorrow is another day”!
Session 1: Kate Grenville: “Family Stories”
After a generous welcome to country by the local representative of Australia’s original story-tellers, Ngunnawal elder Aunty Agnes Shea, Kate Grenville took the floor – and presented a passionate argument for the importance of capturing and keeping stories. She blessed her mother for insisting on repeating the family stories that eventually inspired her to research and write The secret river – and thence The lieutenant and Sarah Thornhill. She read excerpts from stories written by the 97-year-old John Mackie, and argued that “you can’t make up” the experiences of people from the past, that only by reading what they felt and experienced can you manage to turn them into convincing fiction. Sure, you can do research, she said, but you don’t know what to research if you don’t have the stories to guide you. She wouldn’t have known, for example, to research “a scuffler” if Mackie hadn’t written about one.
Grenville concluded by quoting Australian poet Dame Mary Gilmore who argued for preserving the things of the past. Gilmore wanted to write about people, not events; she wanted to show “not the miles walked but the feet that walked them”.
Session 2a: Anita Heiss: Writing Aboriginal Australia into the literary landscape
What an inspiring and entertaining speaker. Heiss commenced by describing what inspired her to write: she was on an international plane flight and overhead a passenger, whose neighbour had said he’d met “a fourth generation Australian”, responding with “you can’t get any more Australian than that!” This interchange showed Heiss that Aboriginal Australians did not appear on “Australia’s identity radar” and she set about correcting that gap in our awareness. Being tertiary educated, Heiss says she’s in the top 1% of the bottom 2.5% of Australians and consequently believes she has a responsibility to “voice our truths”, to show the commonalities as well as the differences in the lives of indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. She clearly takes this responsibility seriously and has published a significant body of work, encompassing children’s and adult fiction and non-fiction.
Heiss was very clear about wanting to provide a resource for people to understand indigenous experience and identity in Australia. What’s good about fiction she said, is “you can create the world you want to live in”. Having not yet read Heiss, I bought one of her books!
Session 2b: Melina Marchetta: The role of travel in establishing setting
Marchetta’s talk was a more practical one about how she needs to visualise a place before she can describe it. I found this intriguing, particularly as she was talking about her Lumatere fantasy series. She needs to travel to see real places that she’ll describe in fantasy? You can tell I’m not a fantasy reader! It all made sense though when she showed photographs from her travels in France, Turkey, and so on, and read excerpts from her books to show how she used her knowledge of places like the rock villages in France to create her fantasy mediaeval world. She, a little sheepishly, read one excerpt which contained quite a bit of geological data, telling us that the general rule is that your reader should not see your research, but in this case she felt it was justified.
Session 3a: Hazel Edwards: Non-boring anecdultery
Self-described author-preneur (and hippopotamus lady*), Hazel Edwards took us on a lively ride through her writing life, which spans multiple forms and approaches from children’s picture-books to adult non-fiction, from writing on her own to collaborative writing. She loosely structured her talk using the letters from ANECDULTERY – as in A for Anecdote, E for e-Books, N for Non-boring, L for Literary Terrorism, and so on, ending in Y for Why! Her talk was full of the wisdom of an experienced writer, delivered with warmth, confidence and humour. She had some great turns of phrase. For example, she told us that her initial reaction to one research subject was that he’d suffered “a charisma bypass” but she grew to love him. She defined history as “high gossip not boring facts”. Edwards believes research is critical, stating that if “you don’t get something right, your reader is no longer going to trust you”.
She said her most significant book is the coming-of-age novel, f2m: the boy within, about a young woman who transitions to being a man. She co-wrote this, using email and skype, with the New Zealand-based ftm writer, Ryan Kennedy.
Session 3b: Kel Robertson: In defence of (trying desperately to be) popular fiction
Kel Robertson? Who is Kel Robertson? Well, I’m embarrassed to say that he’s a local writer who shared the 2009 Ned Kelly Award for Best (Crime) Fiction with Peter Corris for his latest novel, Smoke and mirrors. This same book also won the ACT section of the National Year of Reading competition which is why, he said, it was he addressing us and not one of Canberra’s other writers.
Robertson was in turn entertaining, realistic and provocative about the role of so-called popular, or accessible, fiction – what he calls “entertainments” – in the reading firmament. He told us that it is the popular writers – the Matthew Reillys, for example – who make it possible for publishers to take a risk on new writers, who pay the bills of literary fiction. Having made this point, he then went on to argue that a good reading diet needs its fast food as well as muesli in order to “feed the intellect and satisfy the hunger for diversion”. Many readers, he believes, move to and fro between simple and complex reads. He said that when he is feeling down he grabs “something that is accessible to nourish my psyche” and that he’d like to see a correlation done between “light recreational reading” and “the happiness index”. I’d like to think he has a point … wouldn’t it be good if books could take the place of prozac! I bought Smoke and mirrors for Mr Gums and may, you never know, dip into it myself.
Section 4: Frank Moorhouse: Memoir Writing and Ethics
Frank Moorhouse** is one of the grand old men of Australian literature, best known for his Edith trilogy. The third in this series, Cold light, recently won the Queensland Literary Award for fiction, which he described as “now probably the most noble prize to win because it’s the citizens’ prize, not the Premier’s prize”. Moorhouse didn’t fully speak to the announced topic of his talk – Memoir Writing – but ranged over a variety of issues to do with contemporary reading and culture. He argued that diaries, books on how to garden, weave and so on, make important contributions to culture, to documenting how we live and to shaping an Australian aesthetic. Some of these books, he argued, are written with flair and can survive into the future just as have, say, Samuel Pepys‘ Diary and Izaak Walton’s The compleat angler (1653). He spoke of the relatively recent rise of literary (readers’) festivals and author events, suggesting that they demonstrate a recognition of the importance of the arts in contemporary Australia. He teased out some of the implications of the e-revolution in books, saying, perhaps a little tongue-in-cheek, that e-books make lending books a little harder and “that’s good for writers”.
Moorhouse is not, I’m pleased to say, a grumpy old man. He sees the internet as a positive thing which encourages writing. He is a judge of a major short story competition in Australia and said that the number of entries is increasing as is the quality of the writing. Wow! He concluded with Samuel Johnson’s statement that writing and reading help us endure life***.
While I’d like to think they help us do more than “endure”, this seemed a good note on which the Festival could end, and end at this point it did. I do hope this Festival – beautifully emceed by Louise Maher – becomes a permanent part of Canberra’s cultural calendar.
* Edwards wrote the hugely popular children’s picture book, There’s a hippopotamus on our roof eating cake.
** Bryce Courtenay was the originally listed author for Session 4 but clearly withdrew after his announcement that he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
*** The actual quote is, I think, “The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.” That sounds more like it.
Whispering Gums 
Melina Marchetta and Frank Moorhouse! I would have been particularly interested in hearing them and their topics. But also… NO HOW CAN IT BE FLORIADE ALREADY AGAIN I DON’T UNDERSTAND!!
It was a great event … Have you read Marchetta’s fantasy series? And yes, how can it be …
Thanks for sharing these with us. Which of Anita Hiess books did you buy? Which do you recommend? Her post on Australian Women writers was what started my Australian reading.
I bought Paris dreaming, Marilyn, which is of her chick lit books, because it is partly set in my city and because it deals with indigenous art. I should also have bought Am I black enough for you? but I might see if I can get that for the Kindle.
I’ve got Am I Black Enough For You, but I haven’t had time to get to it yet.
Oh good Lisa … I will get it too … And then try to find time to read it!
A literary feast. Re Frank Moor houses view that the Internet encourages writing to – definitely. Reading too – Amazon. UKs sales figures last quarter show ebook sales up a lot and print sales only down a little. The “e” thing obviously works for them
Thanks for commenting Tom. He also said that attendance at literary festivals is increasing by 10% a year here in Australia. All positive stuff.
That sounds like a well-structured program featuring a variety of writers, and that so many of them were high profile authors means there must have been some serious funding behind this event. Was it well-attended? What do you think the prospects are for a repeat next year?
I’d love to hear Frank Moorhouse and Anita Heiss. (She was a great help to me with organising Indigenous Literature Week at ANZ LitLovers).
Heist was wonderful, Lisa … Passionate, funny, intelligent, generous.
I think it was well-attended, particularly in the morning, but I don’t know what the organisers felt or expected. A nice venue – I love the Playhouse – but perhaps not the best for the festival. They had a a range of sponsors, such as Dymocks, who had a book sale table (sans Matt, unfortunately), and Good Reading mag. I hope they do it again as from the audience point of view it was wonderful. I can see how it could be improved but that doesn’t mean it didn’t go well. And the price seemed very reasonable.
Well, if they get lots of feedback like that:) hopefully I’ll be up there next year with you at a repeat performance!
Fingers crossed!! That would be fun!
What? Spring Festival? Of course… I’m all envious, here we are heading towards winter. (today is the first day of Autumn) Anyway, this is a detailed account of your authors’ reading. I admit I’m not familiar with them. So, thanks for all the info. BTW, we have a similar event coming up in our City in Oct., called Wordfest. Some of the writers coming here include Martin Amis, David Bergen, Alix Ohlin, Vincent Lam…
LOL Arti, it’s our turn for some warmth and long days now! I’m always fasicnated by how you Americans (and Europeands??) mark your seasons via the solstices and equinoxes and we do ours by the first of the month – 1 December for Summer, 1 March for Autumn, and so on.
Your Wordfest sounds great. My city, many years ago, had a Word Festival, but it fell by the wayside. Funding I suppose.
Thanks very much for all your info on the festival for those who couldn’t make it. Bellingen on the Mid North Cost is having its 3rd readers and writers festival on 22-24 March; but we do indeed need funding!
Glad to be of service Annette. Oh, I’ve been wanting to spend more time in Bellingen … next March would be wonderful. That’s not Easter is it?? Funding … the ongoing challenge eh?
The Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival will be 22-24 March – Easter is the weekend after. It would be lovely to meet whos hiding behind that beautiful name!
Why thanks Annette … Easter is the National Folk Festival for me but I’ll put this under my thinking cap! Do drop in every now and then to tell us how your planning is going.
Thank you Whispering Gums for such an excellent account of the CRF. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on improving it, if ACT Libraries runs it again. I was disappointed we ran out of time for the audience discussion at the end. In retrospect I should have been more diligent in telling some speakers when they’re time was up, but it was so interesting hearing their words. One of the ACT Ambassadors for National Year of Reading, Tania McCartney has also blogged about the day:
http://taniamccartney.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/canberra-readers-festival-wrap-up.html
Would you mind if I put up a link to your blog on my 666 Drive webpage?
Thanks Louise … of course I wouldn’t mind. After all, it’s a public blog. But, I do appreciate your asking. I did see and comment on Tania’s lovely post last night – and thought to myself, “why didn’t I say that?” (Such as Moorhouse’s description of out bookshelves representing a tapestry of our lives. Don’t we all know that when we visit other people’s house?)
You did a great job chairing, particularly given that a few did ramble on somewhat over their time limit! You always had something interesting and sensible to say after each speaker. More time for discussion would be great … I just missed out on asking my question in the first session, but didn’t try in others. On the other hand, we readers love to hear writers talk, so finding that happy medium in one short day is always tricky. I liked the mix of authors – nice variety but all valid draw cards. I like the Playhouse, and it worked pretty well as a venue with the big foyer catering for bookselling, signing and people chatting.
The whole thing went very smoothly from we attendees’ point of view (though I was mystified about the statement that registration would start at 9am. There was no Registration that I could see, other than people picking up tickets they hadn’t collected earlier.
Anyhow, you can email me on wg1775@gmail.com if you’d like to talk further. I’ve heard some out-of-towners say they’d come next year if it were on again!
Sounds like a really good mix of authors, covering a number of genres!
It was a great mix Marg with good drawcard authors to cover it.
Thank you! Just quickly – here’s a link to the 666 page:
http://blogs.abc.net.au/canberra/2012/09/read-about-the-canberra-readers-festival-.html?site=canberra&program=canberra_drive
Thanks Louise! Let’s hope this festival takes off.
Pingback: Read about the Canberra Readers’ Festival | TheWord
Sounds like it was a wonderful time! Did you get the chance to enjoy the tulips too? I like what Heiss said about fiction being able to create the world you want to live in.
It was Stefanie … and I got to the tulips today. (Being retired I decided to leave the tulips on Sunday to the workers!)
Yes, I thought that was a great statement … but I thought it would also be an interesting one to tease out from the point of view of what we readers want to read and different authorial purposes. Heiss is on a mission – to improve the world for indigenous Australians, to put them on the map.
That’s really interesting, her idea of a mission. I tend to like writers who have one and who are also good writers. I also like the idea that fiction can affect reality. I think it can, but it is a very slow and uneven process. Still, one does what one can with the tools and talents one has.
Oh I do too Stefanie. I don’t think it has to and I defend there writer’s right to express themselves however they want but I do love the idea of writing to change people and/or the world.
Sounds like a great day. It would have been nice if there had been a bit more prepublicity, I only heard about it a week before, when it was too late to organise getting there.
Thanks Louise … yes, I must say I didn’t see a lot of publicity though that may be because I had my head so caught up with other things I didn’t notice!
What a glorious account of a truly special day. I came home filled to brimming with inspiration and from feeling the literary love. Here’s to next year!
Thanks Tania … It was a great day … May there be many more.