Sydney Writer's Festival - Part 3 and a Half

It's time to bring this baby home!

My final sessions and thoughts about this year's Sydney Writer's Festival.

Town Hall, Sydney - Vivid-style

On Friday evening, Mr Books and I went into Town Hall to hear George Saunders, Colson Whitehead, Mona Chalabi and Julia Turner discuss the topic American Carnage. The term references the point in Trump's inaugural speech when he said, 'the American carnage stops right here, right now.' The ideological divide and 'trusted' information sources being the central themes.

Sadly all four struggled to get their thoughts together and present a coherent, compelling discussion. Perhaps they were jetlagged or tired of talking about this subject or being seen as spokesmen for their entire country. But I wondered if the rather shambolic nature of this discussion also represented how muddled many Americans feel right now. Four months has not been long enough to get their heads around the new world order they are living under.

Saunders suggested the divide was like a castle. Some people imagine a castle and automatically bring to mind a Game of Thrones style castle; others see a Monty Python one.

Chalabi talked about the problems of predictive journalism and how quickly things become 'normalised'. Given they were talking at a SWF event, I would have liked more insight into how it was that Trump managed to be the one to tell the most compelling stories.

Are compelling stories simply those that tell the reader/listener what they want to hear? Or are they the stories that make the reader/listener stretch, grown and learn?

Mr Books and I shared a lively chat on the way home about the difference between Australian politics and American. It was very clear at the beginning of the talk that the Australian audience was very proud of our mandatory voting system which forces everyone to engage in the political process.

I wonder if the talk would have had more direction and structure if there had been a non-American on the panel?

Saturday morning was another glorious autumnal morning in Sydney. I only had one session booked for 3pm, but I went in a couple of hours early to soak up the atmosphere. I enjoyed a chat with a friend and a coffee in the sun before heading into one of the free events featuring Peter Polites author of Down the Hume.

Gay crime or queer noir is not my usual fare, but Polites gave me a lot of food for thought re our class system and political philosophy. He showed that rises in noir writing occurred during times of economic change. The problems of economic casualisation were explored, although he nearly lost me when he declared that 'if Henry James were alive today he would watch Real Housewives of Sydney.'

The session I was looking forward to the most was with Nadja Speigelman.

She didn't disappoint.

Speigelman is articulate, funny, generous, thoughtful, open, honest and gracious. Everything I loved about her memoir, I'm Supposed to Protect You From All This, was on display in person.

The talk was led by Abigail Ulman, who I had never come across before. However, she thoroughly impressed me with her ability to listen carefully and ask knowledgeable questions that guided the conversation naturally. She was granted a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University and won the 2016 SMH Best Young Novelist Award. I will now be on the lookout for her story collection, Hot Little Hands.

I woke up Sunday morning feeling rather exhausted, but I pushed through the pain barrier and headed out the door.

Yet another sunny day on the harbour; more autumnal book bliss; and another coffee break whilst soaking up the glorious sunshine.

It's a hard life, but someone has to do it!

I started the morning with a panel celebration of Melina Marchetta's YA classic, Looking For Alibrandi. Can you believe it's 25 years?

The discussion was modelled on the Have a Say Day section of the book where Josie and Jacob meet. Various authors and actors had their say with Alibrandi being the central idea on which to talk. Pia Miranda hosted the panel that included Melina herself, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Mark Di Stefano, Gen Fricker, Brodie Lancaster and Rajith Savanadasa.

Between them they covered the immigrant experience, feminism, cultural biases, guilty pleasures, embarrassment, love and the importance of seeing ourselves in stories.

My final session for the festival was one of the big ones. Lion: A Long Way Home featured Saroo and Sue Brierley talking about their experiences with adoption, being lost, then found and their journey into the book and movie world.

I have managed to avoid every single interview and review of this book and movie, yet I know all about it. I don't like feeling like my emotions are being manipulated towards a certain state. Every article or chat show seemed to have it's own angle or agenda, so I kept them all at bay.

Having the opportunity to see and hear Saroo and his adoptive mum, Sue, in person felt like the only authentic way to get their story. Naturally they have their own angles and agendas, but it's their story, and I could live with that.

Saroo honoured the three amazing women in his life. The woman he lost (& who waited for him to return one day), the woman who found him on the streets of Calcutta and helped and the woman who raised him to be the man he is today.

His journey is an incredible one and I now feel ready to watch the movie.

I have never spent so much time at one festival before.
It was exhausting, in an over-stimulated kind of way.

The rest of my experiences can be found below.

Part 3 - Public Transport Rant
Part 2 - Thursday
Part 1 - Opening Night Party

Overall, it felt like a mixed bag.
I didn't come away with a long list of new authors or new books to read like I have in previous years. But I didn't see many of the free talks this year...and that's where I have found the hidden gems in the past.

I enjoyed some of the talks - a lot.
But some left me underwhelmed.

When you can pay up to $35 for a ticket, you expect more for your buck. You expect little pearls of wisdom and surprising insights. You expect thoughtful questioning and attentive conversationalists.

I attend writer's festival to learn something new; not to be told the same stuff I already knew because I had read the book. An interviewer or moderators job is to bring out the best in their panel. This is a skill and not everyone displayed it this year.

Next festival I plan to see more of the free events to see if I can find the love again.

Getting from A to B

In my previous post, Nancy asked me how long it takes to get from A to B, in reference to the lovely ferry trips I took into the Sydney Writer's Festival last week. I told her how long each ferry trip took and left it at that.

However as I was drifting off to sleep, exhausted after my big week, but finding it hard to switch my brain off, I thought about all the other factors that I had to take into account to actually get me from A to B on public transport. A being my front door and B being Walsh Bay.

If, on a Sunday evening, Mr Books and I suddenly get the cravings for dumplings, Lotus at Walsh Bay is our first choice. We can jump in our car and be there in under 10 mins (no peak hour traffic at that time of the day!) For a few dollars in parking, we can park right out the front of the restaurant, relax, eat, enjoy a glass of wine and be home again in about an hour and half. A lovely quick, easy evening out.

However, if we decided to do the same thing with public transport, it would probably take close to the hour and a half just to get there and back again...and cost a whole lot more!

This week it cost me well over $50 in public transport fares...and a whole lot more in time travelling.

As the crow flies, it's probably about 2 km's from my front door to Walsh Bay.

To catch the bus in, I have to walk 7 mins to the nearest bus stop and then travel about 10 mins to Sussex St. It is then about a 20 min walk to Walsh Bay (I walk pretty quickly, so a more leisurely stroll might take the average walker half an hour). Let's call that 45 mins.

I could also catch this bus up to the QVB (15 mins), walk into Town Hall train station and catch a train to Wynyard (probably 10-15 mins), then walk 10 mins to Walsh Bay (or for the SWF pay a gold coin donation to the driver of the shuttle bus that runs every 15 mins between Wynyard and the festival). Another 45 mins.

Or I can walk 7 mins to a different bus stop, catch a bus to Balmain East Ferry stop (5 mins) and take the ferry into Circular Quay (15 mins). Then walk about 15 - 20 mins up and over George St to Walsh Bay. Just over half an hour most days, assuming I was lucky enough to actually get a bus to the ferry in Balmain.
If there isn't a bus to the ferry at the right time, it's a fast 20 min walk from home to Balmain East with a couple of steep hills in between - good for my cardio-vascular, but god-awful on a hot, steamy day or a wet one! About 45 mins all up.

It's also possible to catch this ferry going in the opposite direction - to Darling Harbour and the new Barangaroo terminal. This would be a 10 min ferry ride and a good 20 min walk to Walsh Bay. An easy 45 mins.

Balmain is serviced by two ferry routes, so I can also catch a ferry from the Balmain wharf. It's a 15 min walk from home (no bus option for me for this one), a 10 min ferry trip (no stops along the way on this particular route into Circular Quay), then the 20 min walk up and over George St. 45 mins once again.

This doesn't factor in any of the waiting time between forms of transport, late arrivals or no-shows.

When the opposition groups for new road projects like Westconnex say 'spend more money on public transport', they don't factor in the time and cost it takes to get anywhere on public transport in Sydney...and I'm one of the lucky ones. I live in a very well connected (by public transport) suburb that is close to the city.

We are not London or New York City where a large city is built on a smallish amount of land. It is relatively easy to connect these densely populated areas with great public transport services.
However Sydney is a huge, sprawling city. Getting from one suburb to the next via public transport often involves two different buses, light rail or trains. And lots of time.

I'm a greenie by nature.
Really!

I have a coffee cup at work, so that I don't use the throw-away cups from the cafe every day. I mostly remember to take my green bags to the supermarket. I compost our food scraps at home, recycle paper, glass and plastics and avoid harsh cleaning products when a greener options (with elbow grease) will do the trick. I almost never drive around my suburb as I enjoy the invigorating walks up and down our hilly streets. And if I have the time and the weather is nice, I love catching the ferry into the city.

I think that good, efficient, cost-effective public transport has to be an option. But we also have to be realistic. In Sydney, public transport will not get us to all the football fields we travel to each weekend with the boys in a time efficient or cost effective manner. It will not allow me to visit my family and friends in Central West NSW or Victoria in a timely or cost effective way. Perhaps if we had fast trains (and tunnels through the mountains), that didn't stop at e v e r y  s i n g l e  s t o p along the way, then public transport could become a weekend away option.

However, if time or money or inclement weather (or lots of luggage) is a factor, then the car is the only way. Especially if Mr Books is joining me. For both of us to catch the bus and ferry in to see a play at the Opera House it would cost us together about $15 (and 45 mins in time) each way.
To park under the Opera House for a few hours is less than that and we can drive there in under 20 mins. For a few dollars more we could also get an Uber there and back, for quick, easy door to door service.

Sadly, in Sydney, public transport is not quicker or cheaper.

The rumour is that next year the SWF will be held in the Carriageworks near Newtown/Redfern whilst the Walsh Bay area undergoes renovation (see my previous post about this).

To get there by public transport I will need to take at least 2 different bus, ferry or train routes and just under an hour in travel time (without factoring in any walking to and from bus stops).

Or I could drive there in 15-20 mins.

Rant over!

Sydney Writer's Festival - Part 2

Thursday at the Sydney Writer's Festival was another glorious May day in the sunshine. Over breakfast I planned my session times. Two were pre-booked and paid, but I also hoped to fit in the free session called And the Award Goes To....

Setting out on the ferry in the morning was a tad crisp, but the view coming into Circular Quay is always worth any wind-chill factor that goes with sitting at the front.

My first session, Do We Turn Into Our Mothers? was at the end of Pier 4/5 which took me on a lovely long walk down the entire length of the pier.
The Theatre Bar at the End of the Wharf provided encouragement and inspiration along the way!

The double-decked finger wharves around Walsh Bay were built in the early part of the 1900's.
The old wool stores have now been converted into an arts precinct.
At the end of this year's festival, the area will be closed for 2 years while it undergoes refurbishment and rejuvenation. Apparently there will be a square erected over the water between the two wharves.

Watch this Arts Precinct space for more details.

I was curious to learn a little more about the history of the area, because even though these buildings are old and cold and draughty, I love the tall, dark spaces, the light through the high windows and their relationship to the harbour.

I hope the redevelopment maintains the feel and history of the place but with a few more mod cons, like proper toilets!

The Walsh Bay website tells me that,

At the end of the 19th century, without a seawall, the Walsh Bay foreshore was awash with rubbish and infested with rats. A major disaster changed everything in 1900 when Arthur Payne, a van driver, became the first person to contract the Bubonic Plague, which arrived in Sydney in January. 

The rats were brought under control and by August the outbreak was over. 

In October that year The Sydney Harbour Trust was established to rebuild the port of Sydney. Wharves were renewed and whole streets disappeared as the cliffs were cut down to form Hickson Road.

I arrived with enough time to enjoy a coffee in the sunshine whilst reading my book - Joan Lindsay's bio Time Without Clocks. I was very grateful for my view of clean, sparkling water and colourful flags - not a rat insight! 

Do We Turn Into Our Mothers? was led by Louise Asler, and the conversation included Caroline Baum (author of Only), Nadja Spiegelman (author of I'm Supposed to Protect You From All This) and Jessica Friedmann (author of Things That Helped).

All three have written books about their parents and parenthood although it was their relationship with their mothers that was the particular focus today.
Within that was the idea of narrative - how we constantly rewrite our own histories and the push/pull effect of differing memories within families.

Going into this session, I knew that I already loved Spiegelman's memoir. I realised very quickly it was because that Nadja herself, was a funny, warm, articulate, generous, thoughtful and entertaining person in the flesh.
Nadja explained that her book was 'a shaped telling not a tell-all'.
Her comment about how the process of writing this book allowed her to see the girl in her mother and for her mother to see the woman in her struck a chord.
But I'm sure I will have more to say about this by the end of her individual session on Saturday.

Baum discussed the difficulty of balancing ruthlessness and compassion when writing a memoir and I loved her descriptions of her family as being 'champion sulkers'. I suspect I will be reading her book, Only, now.

Friedmann was harder for me to define or discuss lightly.
She has been through some major periods of depression, including a traumatic post-natal depression time that informed her book of essays.
Body image and boundaries have been her life themes so far. There was an intensity about her presence and her comments that overwhelmed my senses. I felt challenged by her and uncomfortable. Jessica's intelligence shone through everything she said but it wasn't always easy to hear what she had to say. I'm not sure I can read her book.
Her journey has been very dark at times and I can only admire her courage and determination - from afar - a little at a time.

And the Award Goes To... featured three of the NSW Premier's Literary Award winners.

I was hoping that Heather Rose would be attendance as the winner of the Christina Stead Fiction Award, so imagine my delight when I walked in to see this!

My review for Museum of Modern Love is here.

Also in attendance were the co-authors for One Thousand Hills, James Roy and Noel Zihabamwe. They took out the Ethel Turner Award for Young People's Literature.

We spent the hour exploring friendship, their writing processes and the idea of hope and kindness in literature. 

Having researched both books and authors for the reviews I previously wrote, I didn't really learn anything new. But I was thoroughly entertained and heartened by the creative impulses that drive our talented authors.

My final session for the day was in The Loft on Pier 2/3.

The views of the bridge through the high windows are gorgeous while the sounds of the trains going across it are occasionally distracting!

This session was with Kate Grenville discussing her book about The Case Against Fragrance with moderator Caroline Baum. The same Caroline Baum that I had seen earlier in the day talking about mothers, reminding me that the Australian arts scene is often very self-contained.

As I was walking back to the ferry in the fading afternoon light, I reflected on my day.

It had been thoroughly enjoyable and stimulating, but I'm not sure I learnt anything new. I didn't discover any new-to-me authors or feel compelled to add any more books to my wishlist.

Perhaps the weekend sessions will change my mind?

My Week So Far...

This week is one of my favourite weeks in Sydney.

It's the Sydney Writer's Festival which means it's time for me to my get my #bookgeek on and revel in all things bookish, writing and words!

Things may be a bit quiet on here as a result.

Monday evening after work I went into the Sydney Theatre Company to watch a one woman play called Jane Eyre: An Autobiography. Dyad Productions seem to be a regular feature of the SWF now. Last year I thoroughly enjoyed their performance of Austen's Women.

This year's treat was a very personal look at one of my favourite classics. Viewed through a feminist lens we watch Jane grow into a determined, independent woman who knows her own mind and morals. Someone who is prepared to lose everything to stay true to herself, but who will also move heaven and earth to get what she wants.

We're enjoying a glorious autumn in Sydney this May, so my walk back to the ferry after the show was just lovely. The harbour was calm and balmy and the added bonus for me was the pre-Vivid preparations.

Seeing some of the lights without the crushing crowds suits me to a tee!

On Tuesday evening, after work, I headed into Walsh Bay again. This time it was for the Opening Party at Pier 2/3. I had lots of fun catching up with friends in the book industry and rubbing shoulders with authors and media personalities.

This time the pre-Vivid lights were playing on the MCA as well.

Thursday is my day off work and I'm about to head in for a few talks, including one with Kate Grenville and another with Nadja Speigleman. I also plan to go to the 'meet the winners' session for this year's NSW Premier's Literary Awards.

This week always over-stimulates me. I bubble along on a bookish high, my mind racing along at a thousand miles an hour...until i crash and burn on Sunday night!

I'm trying to pace myself better this year.

If you're coming to Sydney for any of the events this year, please PM on twitter if you'd like to meet up for a coffee between sessions.

Happy reading!

Sydney Writer's Festival 2016

Some times you see so much, hear so much and think so much it's hard to bring it all together into a coherent whole.

There were so many wonderful moments and details about my time at this year's Sydney Writer's Festival.

Now that I've had some time to reflect as well as discuss our shared experiences with my colleagues and customers, the one thing that it all keeps coming back to is that a lot of people really love books.

The festival consisted of a lot of great experiences and a few not so great (for some people) but it all boils down to a lot of people who love reading.

Every year the people who attend SWF love to catch up with their favourite authors but they're also willing to listen to authors outside their comfort zone, outside their usual genres, outside their usual experiences.

New connections are made. New loves get discovered. New ideas are explored.

I was fortunate enough to attend the launch of this year's Festival back in April. I hobnobbed with authors, booksellers, publishers and just a few media types.

The champagne flowed as we took in the vibe in the huge cavernous space that is Pier 2/3 at Walsh Bay.

This place that has become the home to storytellers of all kinds - dancers, playwrights, authors - it's a place that fosters storytelling and creativity.

This place that also has a story of its own to tell - if only the old timber walls and floorboards could talk.

And if only the ancient shell middens and rock engravings underneath all of that could tell us their stories too.

But for now, this night, the story was about books, or 'bibliotherapy' to be more precise. The theme and new logo for the SWF were revealed by Artistic Director, Jemma Birrell.

The spark for this year's theme came from a New Yorker article by Ceridwen Dovey, entitled Can Reading Make You Happier?

Dovey wrote about her experience with a bibliotherapist and discovered that,

Reading has been shown to put our brains into a pleasurable trance-like state, similar to meditation, and it brings the same health benefits of deep relaxation and inner calm. Regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels, higher self-esteem, and lower rates of depression than non-readers.

The launch ended with a list of the authors attending this year's SWF and a video presentation from Kate Tempest, her words,

/I know Hell is empty cause all the devils are here/

captured my attention.

I exited the building to witness a glorious autumnal sunset - no devils here after all!

Jump ahead a few weeks to another glorious evening in May.

Monday night, my first SWF event was Austen's Women performed by Rebecca Vaughan.

A one woman performance piece featuring 13 of Austen's women.

This time my evening view was from Pier 4, looking back towards Pier 2/3 and the Harbour Bridge

Vaughan did a tremendous job in moving from one character to the next, using minimal props.

For lovers of all Austen's work (like me), this was a treat of the familiar brought to life.

Thursday was my day off work and my chance to enjoy a whole day at the festival.

I was reading Tempest's book to get into the right vibe for the week even though I was not planning on seeing any of her talks. See accompanied me to all my venues and made a great chatting prompt with others waiting in the lines.

Coffee and reading break

One of the free events I attended was a Meet the Writers chat. It featured some of the folk who had won awards at the previous evenings NSW Premier's Literary Award ceremony.

Magda Szubanski and Alice Pung were both in attendance.

This was a very personal discussion about two very different women, from very different generations and with very different backgrounds, who both shared in common the difficulty of being second generation children of refugees who fled war torn countries. 

They talked about their loneliness and sense of exclusion and how their families used humour to cover up their pain.

They discussed the role of gratitude and stoicism and survivor guilt. 

Vicarious trauma was something they both experienced as they grew up.

They both wrote to vent and to escape.

And they both spoke with great affection and understanding about their parents.

Although Pung won the NSW Premier's Award for her recent YA novel, Laurinda, after hearing her talk with Magda about her father, I would also love to read her memoir, Her Father's Daughter.

I then moved across the road to the Roslyn Packer Theatre for my next event.

This was one of my paid in advance events.

At the time I booked it I was focused on wanting to see Gloria Steinem live and didn't pay attention to who else was on the panel. And this is what I love about the SWF, the unexpected pleasures from the unknown. Because Indigenous poet Ali Cobby Eckermann and Jean-Christophe Rufin were both fascinating guests. I particularly enjoyed Rufin's talks about his time with Medicins san Frontieres and his big walk along the Camino de Santiago....so much so, that I bought his book.

Journeys was the theme and they all left us with little pearls of wisdom:

Gloria "The road blows away your preconceptions."

"You're not more important than anyone else, but also, you're not less important."

Jean-Christophe "Camino is like a virus - when you touch - you're infected."

"You become addicted to this life - this vagabond life - you don't think, your body thinks for you."

Ali "The road takes away social stigmas and labels. Friendship can bloom anywhere."

"The stories live in the land."

I went straight from this discussion to Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads talk.

I was seated right at the back of the hall, so I spared you all the fuzzy far away photo of this event!

I have yet to read The Silk Roads, although I have been eyeing off the glorious cover ever since Christmas. 

And just quietly, between you and me, I knew nothing about Peter Frankopan, so I expected an old Oxford don type with messy hair and a faded but neat suit to walk out on stage.

Imagine my pleasant surprise to discover that Frankopan is only in his early 40's, likes to wear a tailored suit and looks rather dashing as he does so!

His aim with this book was to challenge the Eurocentric version of history.

He talked about why his title has a plural, why globalisation is nothing new and why it is important to study history.

Needless to say, I now also own a copy of The Silk Roads.

Mr Books then joined me for one of the evening sessions with David Marr. He interviewed Nikki Savva about her recent political sensation The Road to Ruin.

It was an interesting political discussion but mostly about how Savva wrote the book, collected her information and how she chose what to put in and what not, who to get on the record, who to leave off and her motivation for writing it in the first place.

Unfortunately this was one of the events marred by unfortunate timing as a live band began playing in another event further down the wharf about half way through the talk. We had to listen to two songs through the un-insulated walls before we could hear our speakers clearly again.

A minor annoyance quickly forgotten as Mr Books & I enjoyed a dumpling dinner with a glass of wine and a healthy bookish debate at our new favourite Lotus Dumpling Bar across the road.

Saturday night saw me at my final event for the festival.

This time at Town Hall, all lit up in preparation for VIVID.

Ferrante Fever was a panel discussion featuring translator Ann Goldstein. 

She discussed the publishing and reading phenomenon that is the Neapolitan tetralogy (we all fell in love with how she used this word!) I was fascinated to discover that Goldstein only learnt Italian in her 30's because she wanted to read, as you do, Dante, in the original.

Sharing the panel discussion with Goldstein were Emma Alberici, Susan Wyndham, Benjamin Law and Drusilla Modjeska. They all had little snippets of insight into character development and why the books have struck such a chord with English speaking readers.

The energy and excitement around this chat caused the organisers to announce that the talk would be extended for another half an hour. It also had the positive effect of convincing me to finally finish reading the series myself.

For me the buzz of the SWF's continued for at least a week afterwards as customers came into work asking for books from the authors that they heard. This led to lots of stimulating chats, comparisons and reading suggestions.

Many of the events eventually get turned into podcasts for general consumption. Check the website here for updates.

The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader

I had the good fortune to listen to Cadwallader speak at this year's Sydney Writer's Festival in a session moderated by Ashley Hay called The Body: Sin, Sex, Denial.

I came away from it with a very strong desire to read all three author's books, ASAP! (The other two authors being Caitlin Doughty and James Boyce).

Having just finished One Life, it seemed only natural to follow up with a story about the choices made by another strong, independent woman.

The Anchoress is set in the English Midlands in 1255. Sarah, our young protagonist, decides to become an anchoress - a virgin locked away by choice into a cell "that hugged the church" - for life. The only access to the outside world is via a squint that reveals nothing but the church altar and two windows - one so the anchoresses maid could attend to her needs and one 'parlour' window for women to visit asking for prayers and spiritual advice. The only other visitor allowed is the Father Confessor.

Cadwallader describes the anchoresses life as being one of "living death". I was very curious to see how she could weave a whole novel out of this very confined and narrow world.

Sarah tells her own story for much of the book, but a few chapters are told from her Father Confessor, Ranaulf's point of view. Both Ranaulf and Sarah are changed significantly by this confined relationship.

Cadwallader convincingly describes Sarah's struggles to adjust to life in a cell even as she embraces with passion and fervour her new life devoted to prayer and faith. Sarah gradually reveals her backstory so that we can understand how she came to make the decision to become an anchoress.

I had had no idea about this medieval practice and found the story of The Anchoress compelling and repulsive at the same time. The harsh practices and teachings of the church at this time and the overt subjugation of women were distressing and infuriating to read about.

Watching Sarah grow into her role as anchoress is at the heart of this story. Cadwallader painfully captures the various emotional states that Sarah goes through to achieve peace of mind.

Fascinating and beautifully told, The Anchoress is herstory brought vividly to life.

Linked to Australian Women Writer's Challenge and Saturday Review of Books.

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

Last week was the Sydney Writer's Festival. One of the events I attended was a conversation with Liane Moriarty.

I read and fell in love with Big Little Lies last year and I've been meaning to read some of her back list ever since.

I took my copy of The Husband's Secret along with me to be signed. Naturally I started reading it throughout the day...I very quickly finished it in a couple of greedy, gulping reading sessions over the weekend.

Moriarty writes quick, easy compelling books, and she does it so well. Her stories are character driven which is why you feel so close to them and involved in their lives. They are believable, nuanced, complex beings. They could be your best friends; they could be you.

At the SWF, Moriarty said she likes to explore how good people do evil things sometimes - that this is the thing in life she is trying to work out. It sits very closely next to my thing - trying to understand man's inhumanity to man - which is no doubt one of the reasons why I respond so strongly to her stories. Moral dilemma's and domestic compromise drive Moriarty's books - along with her characters, you seesaw between what is the right or wrong thing to do.

Moriarty in Conversation in The Loft

I did pick the main twist or the whodunnit fairly early on with both Big Little Lies and The Husband's Secret. However this did not stop my enjoyment of either story. In fact, it added to my pleasure as I love it when I am proven to be right!

I thoroughly enjoyed the 'sliding doors' epilogue in THS that explored some of the things that might have happened if the key players had made different choices. It also gave me one of my key, "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it" moments!

The Husband's Secret has been reviewed by many wonderful bloggers over the past two years, so I wont repeat their comments, I'll just give a shout out to a few of my favourite links. (If you'd like to add your review link please feel free to add it to the comments section below).

Heidi @...But Books Are Better
Beth Fish Reads and
Melissa @Avid Reader's Musings

View of the Sydney Harbour Bridge from The Loft

One of the curious comments from Moriarty though, was to do with the growing trend in the US market about adding 'trigger warnings' to the covers of books that might make people feel sad. Apparently she has had a few upset emails from readers saying she should warn readers that her books deal with sad and difficult topics.

We, in the audience, on Thursday were horrified.

I've been thinking about it ever since.
Why did this horrify me so much?

For me reading is about the emotional journey.

I don't want to be forewarned that someone is going to die, or suffer domestic violence, or be involved in an accident. I don't need a cover sticker to flag that the story contains adultery, childhood illness or religious references. I want to discover this for myself within the flow of the story.

If there are enough twists and turns or differences in perception then I want the pleasure of a reread to see how the author forewarns of us these issues, but I don't want a sticker on the cover to tell me so before my first read.

I would suggest that the blurb on the back cover, the quotes from other authors on the title page and a quick read of the first page are enough to tell you whether this book is for you or not. Even it's placement in the bookshop or library gives you clues about it's genre and style.

But it has got me curious. Very curious.
Do you like the idea of trigger warnings on covers?

Ru by Kim Thuy

I love it when I discover a new author that simply bowls me over with the beautiful simplicity of her story. Reading Thuy's (pronounced twee) autobiographical novel, Ru has been a magical, moving experience.

"I came into the world during the Tet Offensive, in the early days of the Year of the Monkey, when the long chain of firecrackers draped in front of houses exploded polyphonically along with the sound of machine guns."

Like Thuy, and her protagonist, An Tinh, I was born in the Year of the Monkey, 1968, but our two stories could not be further apart. Yet last night we shared a chat and a laugh and compared comfort foods (Thuy - congee; me - vegemite on toast).

Thuy spent the first ten years of her life in Saigon; most of that time was taken up with post war reconstruction and re-education programs. Her family then fled Vietnam via boat and eventually ended up in a Malaysian refugee camp. Some time later they emigrated to Quebec, Canada.

There is nothing ordinary or usual about this story and there is nothing usual or ordinary about Thuy's writing - it's a mixture of the poetic, the graphic and the sublime.
Thuy reminds us all to see and feel the love in all the different and subtle ways that people show it to us.

I had the pleasure of meeting Thuy twice during the week at the Writer's Festival in Sydney. She confirmed that her books are such a mix of fact and fiction that it's almost impossible to separate the two out.

Her books begin as "fat documents that get simmered down" into word precise vignettes. I loved the image she painted of walking "around the words to see them from every angle" before selecting them or deleting them from each draft. For me, the only flaw with this style of writing is that the vignettes only just hung together and they didn't quite come to a satisfactory end. But Ru was all about the journey, not the destination. It's the writing, the emotions and the memories that stay with you for days afterwards.

I can't wait to get into Thuy's latest novel, Man, also written in French and translated by Sheila Fischman.

Ru has been won several awards since its 2009 publication -

WINNER 2015 - Canada Reads
WINNER 2011 – Grand prix littéraire Archambault
WINNER 2011 – Mondello Prize for Multiculturalism
WINNER 2010 – Prix du Grand Public Salon du livre––Essai/Livre pratique
WINNER 2010 – Governor General’s Award for Fiction (French-language)
WINNER 2010 – Grand Prix RTL-Lire at the Salon du livre de Paris
Longlisted 2013 – Man Asian Literary Prize
Longlisted 2014 – International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
Shortlist 2012 - Scotiabank Giller Prize
Shortlist 2012 – Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation

If you loved Like Water For Chocolate and Perfume, I think you will also love Ru.

Longlists and Shortlists Take 2

This is the week of the Sydney Writers' Festival.

Realistically though, the whole month of May can be taken up with major book events.
For anyone in Sydney or in the book trade this can be a big deal.

I'm in both!

Last week I had my book sellers cap on and attended two invitation only events.

One was hosted by Harlequin to meet two of their authors - Karen Brooks and Ryan Campbell.
It was an impressive event held at Otto's on Woolloomoloo Wharf. The wine flowed freely as the authors did their spiels. Afterwards we relaxed around the table to chat and laugh.
As for the food - exquisite!

The other event was hosted by Random House for booksellers to meet our former Prime Minister Julia Gillard!

Gillard has written a memoir about her time in politics and this was the first step into the limelight for 'My Story'.

I didn't always agree with her politics, & the Labor way of running a political party leaves a lot to be desired, but I went from being proud, to uneasy, to appalled by the vitriolic and extremely personal comments that were made about Gillard in the press and by media personalities.

It is in my mind again today with the whole Tony Abbott wink incident. The first problem is that this issue takes over the media cycle. It's being discussed and debated and most people think it's pretty off, but curiously the shock jocks seem to be very quiet about this and the opinion just seems to be "oh well some blokes like to wink, no harm in that love!"

(I know, I know, don't get me started!)

(This is not a political piece or a critique on the state of journalism in Australia or even a commentary on the etiquette of winking, this is a bookish blog...)

(arghhhhhhhhhhhhh - okay back on track....)

I also had the pleasure of attending Gillard's first outing last year, after she was toppled as leader, at the sell-out event held in the Opera House.
It was hosted by Anne Summers who wrote The Misogyny Factor.

At both events I was impressed by Gillard's warmth, intelligence & humour. She was gracious and down to earth.

It was a great start to the festival.

But this week I have caught a nasty flu bug and have failed to attend any of the wonderful events on offer.

I'm hoping to feel well enough to attend the Saturday sessions at Walsh Bay, but for now I thought I would update the Longlists and Shortlists post from last month.

The Stella Award this year went to Clare Wright for her non-fiction work The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka.

The Miles Franklin Shortlist now looks like this:

The NSW Premier's Literary Awards were announced on the 19th May.

The winners included:
Michelle de Kretser's Questions of Travel (Christina Stead Prize for Fiction & Book of the Year)
Fiona McFarlane's The Night Guest (UTSGlenda Adams Award for New Writing)
Joint winners:
Michael Fullilove's Rendezvous with Destiny & Kristina Olsson's Boy, Lost (Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction)
Katrina Nannestad's The Girl Who Brought Mischief (Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature)
A J Bett's Zac and Mia (Ethel Turner Prize for Young Peoples Literature)
Ashley Hay's The Railwayman's Wife (People's Choice)  Yippee! One of my favourites this year :-)

The Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) had their annual conference last weekend in Melbourne where they announced their Bookseller's Book of the Year - Hannah Kent's Burial Rites.

Christine Piper's After Darkness won this years The Australian/Vogel's Literary Award for unpublished manuscript.

The Victorian Premier's Literary Award for fiction went to Alex Miller's Coal Creek. While their People's Choice Award went to Hannah Kent's Burial Rites.

There is now also a 'reinvented' Australian Book Industry Award (whatever that means!) that will be announced tomorrow night.

I'll keep you posted!

Happy Sydney Writers' Festival!


PS. I have entered this post as a 'cheat's post' for the Armchair BEA. I hope you don't mind that it covers several topics as well as the topic of 'author meetings'.