RE: Back on the list
PODESTA,Lesley (Lesley.PODESTA@dewrsb.gov.au)
Sat, 11 Sep 1999 21:14:32 +1000 (EST)
Hi everyone,
Tim asked me about the Melbourne Writers' Festival,
"Congratulations on the festival. Perhaps, when you have a free moment
(hah, we all know how rare those are), you can summarize what the event
involved and who participated and what activities you organized. There
are many people who would be interested. I certainly would be."
Glad to fill you in Tim.
The Melbourne Writers' Festival is an annual event. I'm on the Board and
help to organise it. It is part of my commitment to maintaining balance in
my own life.Melbourne's festival is the biggest and probably the most
established. Ours takes place in a theatre complex on the south bank of the
river. Other festivals here are in tents in a park in the middle of summer
(Adelaide) or in a warehouse near the harbour (Sydney). But there are
hunderds of writers' festival across Australia. We have the distinction of
having one of the highest rates of community participation in literary
events in the world. I love the fact that in a cyber world, people still
want to come together to talk about books/writing and ideas.
For example, the Melbourne festival attracted over 32,000 paying customers
to a ten day event this year.(And hundreds more to the free sessions.) This
year the programme featured Isabel Allende, Adeline Yen Mah, Oscar Hijuelos,
Alex Garland, B. Ruby Rich and many, many local writers. Nearly every
session was sold out.
The great thing about the festival is that it is a very democratic space.
People mingle and talk about books, writing, ideas. We had very great public
emotion ( eg sessions on hate speak, writing after great pain, stolen
children, fueds with publishers), laughter, provocation. I chaired a session
on sex and death which was based on the experience of two writers "of a
certain age", self professed pornographers as they described themselves, who
had both lived with cancer, rejection and "sexual shelf life". It was an
electric session. People were crying, laughing. They were mobbed afterward.
Both of them have had people writing to them about their own writing,
illness, abandonment by lovers etc.
People choose their own sessions. We have a programme that features about
125 sessions so everyone has their own version of what the festival feels
like. What is common, however, is communal coffee, talking and meeting. I
always find new friends there. It is a very collegiate environment. It is a
very special event that draws me in every year as I regain a sense of
community within the diversity of communities that is the late nineties.
Something similar to the list except we meet in the flesh!
Lesley Podesta