Any writers’ festival is a chance for a bunch of book nerds to come together to embrace their love of all things bookish with a bunch of fellow book nerds. The Sydney Writers’ Festival is really no different. It’s a chance to strike up conversations with complete strangers secure in the knowledge that they will understand where you’re coming from and why it makes complete sense to run to the next line-up or sit in the sun listening to a talk outside the theatre you can’t get into because you were late.
Gleebooks was the first stall I ventured into, and going inside was a colourful assault on my senses. I didn’t know where to look – on the tables or the walls, because both were filled with pictures and books and titles I did not want to miss. There might have been a photo or two of books that had interesting covers and I wanted to check out later.
After a book-stop, I headed out to try and find a session to make – I had arrived at lunch time, that awkward time when it was too late to get into the 11:30 sessions and too early to line up for the 1:30 sessions. It was too warm for an autumn Saturday and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t find a spot in the shade to be able to listen to any of the sessions being piped out onto the wharf for those who couldn’t get in.
It’s a vast change from last year when Autumn was cool and rainy and it sucked being out at the water on days like that.
I wandered around then, stumbling into the author’s room and getting a very strange look from an author on the couch wondering who on earth I was – it was enough to get me to ask a volunteer if it was okay to be there, which it wasn’t.
I lined up to listen to Alexis Wright talk about her latest novel, The Swan Book, a futuristic and dystopian tale about Australia and Aboriginals – and I confess, I didn’t know what I was getting into when I entered the session and now realise how woefully unprepared I was for it and Alexis’ work. Alexis is an award-winning author, and her calling is to write, to be an Indigenous voice in Australian literature. The beauty of her work is that she draws influences from a diverse range of literature around the world.
I headed to the Best Young Australian Novelists session next with Hannah Kent, Fiona McFarlane, and Balli Kaur Jaswal. Luke Carman, author of An Elegant Young Man could not make it.
Hannah Kent is the author of Burial Rites, about the last woman executed in Iceland for her role in a double murder. Fiona McFarlane’s The Night Guest is about a woman’s descent into dementia and Balli Kaur Jaswal’s Inheritance deals with a Sikh family and the three very different children growing up within it in a modern world.
The women were all ridiculously humble, funny and articulate about their passion – writing. All three started writing young, in Kent’s and McFarlane’s case – insanely young – before they turned 10 and all were and are voracious readers.
They spoke about the research involved in the book, or what and how inspired their characters. Above all else, their determination, perserverance and dedication to their craft shone through as they described their writing journeys. It was as if sitting before me was the very picture of a writing lesson: no one’s journey is going to be the same and everyone writes differently and that’s okay. Don’t let anyone else tell you different.
It was interesting too to learn about their experiences with publishing – to Kent valuing her editor’s input while Jaswal’s first novel was deemed too “quiet” for a publisher – too midlist (her next is a dark comedic novel called Erotic stories for Punjabi Widows which is exactly what it says and seems to be anything but quiet. McFarlane kept the details of her next book close to her chest.
All in all, even though I wasn’t able to go to much of the festival this year I am, as always profoundly glad I have next year’s to look forward to.
