Newcastle Writers Festival 2019

I so enjoy going to Newcastle Writers Festival each year in early April. It's one of my very favourite festivals for so many reasons. I get to catch up with lots of family and friends. NWF always puts on such a great line up - lots of free sessions that you can actually get in to. The compactness makes it fabulous to attend - you can actually attend back to back sessions easily.

I always line up too many sessions at NWF, so much temptation.... but I managed to limit that a bit this year, and went to a sensible number of sessions so I didn't feel too brain dead at the end of the day.

Kon Karapanagiotidis

This year I saw:

Fr Rod Bower
Mark Brandi
Jane Caro
Trent Dalton
Clementine Ford
Chris Hammer
Kon Karapanagiotidis (twice!)
Anisa Nandaula
Emily O'Grady
Holly Throsby
Gillian Triggs

A predominantly nonfiction experience! Very unusual for me. But writers festivals are definitely places to push the boundaries. 

Chris Hammer and Holly Throsby

I was sad to miss out on so many others, but especially:

Claire G Coleman
Ginger Gorman
Chloe Hooper
Ben Quilty

I do so love a festival bookshop. So much potential, and all those lovely stacks waiting to be touched and poured over. Provided here by Macleans Booksellers

All set up and ready to go

So pretty. So tempting. I fell. Naturally.

Nowhere near enough copies,
these were quickly sold out

I already had a copy of By Sea & Stars
I wanted to buy Boy Swallows Universe
but they only had nasty mass market paperbacks.
Book snob? Youbetcha

My NWF2019 book stack:

I took three with me to get signed
and bought three there

Naturally I bought another (rather large) stack of (new and second-hand) books whilst travelling to and from Newcastle. At some old favourites: Better Read Than Dead in Newtown. Megalong Books in Leura. And a visit to a new favourite: The rather huge Salvos store at Tempe.

The Top 10 NWF2019 Bestsellers:

1. Speaking Up by Gillian Triggs
2. Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
3. Kerry O’Brien: A Memoir by Kerry O’Brien
4. Boys Will Be Boys by Clementine Ford
5. Accidental Feminists by Jane Caro
6. The Power of Hope by Kon Karapanagiotidis
7. One Hundred Years of Dirt by Rick Morton
8. Scrublands by Chris Hammer
9. Outspoken by Rod Bower
10. Up to Something by Katrina McKelvey and Kirrili Lonergan

Newcastle Writers Festival do a great job of providing entertainment between sessions too. This year there were beach chairs set up in Wheeler Place with headphones to listen to short stories. 

Yes, guitarpwriter needs to be
seen, and heard, to be believed

Another great feature of NWF (well serendipitously at least) is that on Saturday the Olive Tree Market is across the road in Civic Park. I picked up some fab Charcoal & Mint Botanical Toothpaste from Lovebyt. A refillable deodorant from Asuvi! And I might have splurged on a fabulous lariat necklace from Olivia Raymond. My second of hers. 

I snacked on Halouminati Fries from
The Haloumi Hut

having already filled up on particularly incredible Crispy Skinned Chicken at Dumpling Flavour on Darby Street when I had an early lunch with friends. 

Due to travel commitments I think Newcastle will be the only writers festival that I can fit into my busy schedule this year - which is rather 😢 obviously. At least it was a good one. I'll have to try to attend a new festival next year to help me along my quest to go to all the book festivals in Australia. Adelaide,  Byron and Brisbane all sound so promising. 

NWF 2015
NWF 2016
NWF 2017
I couldn't make it for NWF 2018

Melbourne Writers Festival 2017 #MWF2017

I've long been a fan of Melbourne Writers Festival. I attended my first MWF back in 2007, but my second wasn't until 2012. Happily since then I've been able to attend most of these annual delights of bookdom.

It's a bookish city when the taxi boots have book ads!

Melbourne is definitely my favourite Australian big city festival (well of the two that I've been to so far). It's so accessible. Mostly all held around Fed Square, the transport is easy (even if you don't get to stay across the road like I do...), it's so compact, you can easily do back to back sessions.

Joyce Carol Oates Keynote

Plus you're in Melbourne. Lots of opportunities for yum cha, cafes, dinner. Eat Melbourne 2017 is in the pipeline, in the meantime we can revisit 2016. And the art galleries are fab too, I caught a few amazing exhibitions this year. More to come on that. And I caught the start of Melbourne Fashion Week which was much more fun than expected. 

This year I saw an astonishing range of Australian and International writers. 

Alice Pung (twice)
Amie Kaufman
Angie Thomas
Anni Hine Moana
AS Patrić
Bruce Pascoe
Charles G Gross
Danielle Binks
Ellie Marney
Hannah Kent
Jennifer Ackerman
Jennifer Down
Jenny Valentish (twice)
Joyce Carol Oates (twice)
Kyo Maclear (twice)
Laurie Penny
Maxine Beneba Clarke (twice)
Megan Abbott
Melanie Cheng
Melissa Keil
Omar Musa
Randa Abdel-Fattah
Reni Eddo-Lodge
Rutger Bregman
Ryan O'Neill
Sarah Schmidt
Shaun Tan
Tracey Chevalier
Zana Fraillon
Zoë Morrison

Sadly, of course I missed many writers that I would have loved to have seen, including

Brian Castro

Jane Caro

Julia Baird

John Safran

Tim Flannery

Tony Birch

Tracey Spicer

But you just can't be everywhere at once. 

Angie Thomas YA Keynote

I am particularly keen to read many (most) of the authors that I saw. Some of them were completely unknown to me before. I was particularly blown away by Angie Thomas' YA Keynote Address. I do hope to do a blog about her session soon(ish), and a number of others, but I tend to be bad at that. I've already started reading The Hate U Give. I also particular keen to read Kyo Maclear, Melissa Keil and Hannah Kent. 

I love festival stacks of books

even more than regular bookshops

so pretty, so much potential. 

The Top 20 MWF Bestsellers at the Readings Festival Bookshop. Writers festivals always give me hope that maybe the world isn't really going to hell in a hand basket, lots of clever, involved people are buying and reading those books.

Book Launch - The Sorry Tale of Fox & Bear

Last week I was very lucky and got to attend the regional launch of The Sorry Tale of Fox & Bear. 

This was a very special event. The Sorry Tale of Fox & Bear is the first book published by Dirt Lane Press, a new publisher based in Orange, NSW. Naturally I became a friend of Dirt Lane Press as soon as I heard about it last year. 

There was lots of delicious, organic local wine. I believe that there was white wine as well, but I didn't notice. 

I don't believe I'd had this before,
but took quite a liking to it 

Special guest Freya Blackwood
was there to launch the book

Mark MacLeod, Margrete Lamond and Heather Vallance

 The launch was held at the new Botanica Flora, and was also the opening of an exhibition of the gorgeous art work Heather Vallance made for The Sorry Tale of Fox & Bear.

http://australianwomenwriters.com

Saturday Snapshot is a wonderful weekly memenow hosted by WestMetroMommy

Newcastle Writers Festival 2017

Last weekend I enjoyed my third trip to Newcastle Writers Festival. It's such a fabulous festival. So well organised. A vast range of great sessions. And so many free sessions. This year half the 170 sessions were free! Four of the eleven sessions I went to over two days were free.

The program was so good this year that I had real difficulty with picking the sessions I wanted to attend, because it meant I was missing out on so may other great sessions. It took me weeks to sort out my sessions as I tried to maximise the number and range of authors that I would hear. 

Nikki Gemmell

Clementine Ford, Randa Abdel-Fattah, Jane Caro, Ruby Hamad

I got to see so much Australian talent-

Peggy Frew
Alice Pung
Holly Throsby
Magdalena Ball
Wendy James
Michael Sala
Andy Muir
Jackie French
Sarah Armstrong
Emily Maguire
Randa Abdel- Fattah
Jane Caro
Clementine Ford
Belinda Alexandra
Fiona Higgins
Tara Moss
David Hunt
Steven Amsterdam
Nikki Gemmell
Leah Kaminsky
Kirsty Eager
Jacklyn Moriarty


So much of it overwhelmingly female. But in doing so I missed sessions with

Richard Roxburgh (I think he had the biggest signing line of the weekend, definite rock star status and his was the only book to sell out in the bookshop)
Sarah Wilson
Elspeth Muir
Nick Earls
Julia Baird

and so many others, and other great sessions that included some of the writers that I did see.

All the sessions I saw were fabulous. Inspiring. Thought provoking. Covering such a vast range of topics-everything imaginable really. Feminism. Racism. Sexual assault. Death and dying. Family violence. Australian history. Balinese ritual vaginal cleansing. Yes, it's a thing.

NWF is five years old this year. There have been developments and improvements each of the three years I've attended and there were some changes again this year. While the sessions I attended were all in the Town Hall and Civic Theatre there was a new marquee in Wheeler place was a fabulous space and well used. 

And they paid attention to the details too. There were things to read everywhere.

An old phone loaded with short stories!

I do love writers festivals. Where else do you get to see grown men in Moomin t-shirts? And young women with cool Eric Carle ribbons?

There's something so intoxicating about stacks of books. The potential. The possibilities. 

Naturally I came away with a (relatively) small of a stack of books. It's important to support the authors, the festival and the festival bookseller.

My sister leant me Something for Nothing,
and I've already leant her An Isolated Incident

I might have managed to acquire some other books whilst away at various bookshops I sought out. New and used.

And obviously I want to read work from everyone I saw. And a few I didn't get the chance to see...

NWF 2016
NWF 2015

I know that I'll be back next year. Somehow I need to work on getting to a new festival soon(ish) to work on my quest to attend all the writers festivals in Australia. So far I've been to Melbourne, Mudgee, Newcastle and Sydney and keep going back to those because they are the easiest to attend geographically. Plus I really like them, especially Melbourne and Newcastle. 

Saturday Snapshot is a wonderful weekly meme
 now hosted by WestMetroMommy

Melbourne Writers Festival Opening Night 2016

I was very excited to attend the Melbourne Writers Festival again this year. I've been to a few MWFs over the years and a few Opening Nights. Looking back though it seems the last time was 2012! Much too long ago. There was a somewhat bizarre ticketing system this year, which caused me some panic as initially I thought I would not get a ticket to Opening Night, but thankfully more tickets were released and I did.

Maxine Beneba Clarke delivered a sensational opening address. She is an author and slam poet (I'm not really sure what that means exactly). Her speech was moving and powerful. Unexpectedly for me Maxine spoke of the importance of children seeing themselves in their books. She opened with a performance of her poem fairytale from Carrying the World (currently reading, my review coming soonish). It begins

the teacher reads snow white
in our fairytale
my daughter will scar herself
with household bleach tonight
crying mirror on the wall
erase this face as black as night

"Story is where empathy begins and children unseeing themselves in Australian Literature is unfortunately not an unusual introduction to story."

"Some Australian children learn very quickly that literature is a landscape they don't belong in, that books render them invisible. That their stories are not important."

Maxine was 19 before she was able to write a character that looked like herself. Extraordinary video of the Doll Test that she discusses. She also spoke of the spoken word community, the political difficulties of being published as a writer of colour in Australia, the economic realities of surviving as a writer in Australia- when our authors still earn an average of $12,000.

You can watch Maxine Beneba Clarke's MWF Opening Night address online in full, here.

The second part of the evening was the announcement of the Miles Franklin Award 2016. 

We watched videos of the nominated authors read excerpts from their nominated books. 

After A.S Patric was named as winner two delightful fairies ran excitedly up to congratulate him. 

And in a beautiful circle of life moment, Maxine Beneba Clarke had launched Black Rock White City at Readings St Kilda last year. Great to see the award go to a small publisher too, Transit Lounge based, rather appropriately, in Melbourne. 

Newcastle Writers Festival 2016

A month ago I had the great fortune to attend the Newcastle Writers Festival for the second time. I had made my first visit last year, and so I was especially keen to get back this year- and it did take  some doing. The Newcastle Writers Festival started in 2013 and it is growing in leaps and bounds every year under Festival Director Rosemarie Milsom and her amazing team.

Attending a regional writers festival is really a joyous experience. The venues are smaller, the crowds are friendlier, and you get the opportunity to get up close to the writers, both during the sessions and afterwards. Regional festivals may not attract the big international names like the big city festivals, but you have the many advantages of the smaller scale that more than compensate for the lack of international superstars. 

This year the program was expanded, and the Festival made use of the Newcastle Civic Theatre as well as the Town Hall next door. The Theatre acted as Festival Hub, the bar was open, there was outdoor seating, the weather was amazing (a little too hot actually, 35 degrees in April anyone?), Wheeler Place was transformed into a goddam piazza.

This year there were at least 5 concurrent sessions so some very hard decisions had to be made as to what to attend. I went to 7 sessions over the three days. Starting big with the opening session which had Tim Flannery hosted by John Doyle. These two are very well known to Australians for their work individually, and together. Naturally, it was fantastic. Climate change and the Catholic church have never been so funny.

I also attended great sessions with Libby Hathorn, Richard Glover, Rosie Waterland, Charlotte Wood, Marion Halligan, Jean Kent, Patti Miller, David Burton, Trinity Doyle and Fleur Ferris. All amazing discussions. But I had to miss out on Stan Grant, Todd Alexander, Drusilla Modjeska and Kerry O'Brien among many others. There were 140 authors over 70 sessions, over half of which were free. I hope to tell you more about the individual sessions that I attended, but I probably won't- last year I managed to write about one. I got up to some other stuff too, hopefully I'll have time to share that with you too.

Attending a writers festival is always enervating. There are lots of interesting people discussing interesting books and ideas, discussing complex and often controversial matters. It gives you hope that the intellectual life of our world is so much more than you see on TV, and perhaps all is not as hopeless as it may seem. I might have come home with a few more books. It's always important to support the writers who attend the festivals, who give their time and write these amazing books for us all to enjoy.

I can't wait to go back for the Newcastle Writers Festival 2017.