Melbourne Writers Festival – the round-up
It wouldn’t be a Melbourne Writers Festival if I didn’t write a summary of the weekend M and I had together.
First up, I feel compelled to say (much as it pains me greatly) that I think for this year at least, Sydney put on a better writers festival than Melbourne.
Phew. There I’ve got it off my chest. I know I shall be hounded out of Victoria for uttering such blasphemous thoughts, but it’s the truth. I had a better time in Sydney than I did at Melbourne this year.
To put that comment into context – I have attended various sessions at the Melbourne Writers Festival for the past ten years. Latterly, M and I have made a weekend of it, and packed at least two days full of sessions. And we’ve always had a blast.
But this year, the Festival moved to Fed Square from its previous home at The Malthouse Theatre, and I think it’s lost something. There’s no sense of ‘festival’. Patrons drift in and out the various entrances to the venues. The crush in the Malthouse foyer was a big part of the attraction of previous Festivals. Watching all the other Festival-goers. Seeing which authors headed straight to the bar. Predicting which attendees would be author-groupies. Eavesdropping on publishers’ gossip over a latte.
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Seeing Andrew Davies, the screenwriter decribed by The Age as “the master of sex and sensibility”. He has been responsible for, among many other things, the 1995 television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth (with that wet shirt lake scene…), the 1998 adaptation of Vanity Fair, and the 2008 BBC adaption of Sense and Sensibility. He started the session with the opening scene of Sense and Sensibility, prompting many of the audience to double-check their tickets to make sure they weren’t at a session discussing blue movies.
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Attending the launch of Joshua Gans‘ new book, Parentonomics. I’ve read Joshua’s blog The Game Theorist for a while on and off, and this book expands on the (often hilarious) theories first recorded and explored there. As a professor of economics, he applies key economic principles to raising his three children. He says, “Can incentives and rewards help to get them to do things like sleep through the night, eat healthy meals, clean up their rooms, do their homework? Can economics help the smart, caring, well adjusted, high-achieving little person that we know is in there to emerge?” Using M’s most excellent author-signing queuing techniques, we were almost at the front of the line to get our copies of the books signed (or rather, The Poolboy’s copy…as I bought it as a gift for him).
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Hearing Don Watson ‘in conversation’ with Louise Adler. M and I also heard him speak at the Sydney Writers Festival. Very impressive. His articulate wit and political insight had the audience hanging off his every word.
And, of course, with M in town a blogmeet was definitely in order. Saturday night we met up with four of our blog-mates for a most enjoyable dinner at a cafe in Richmond. Every time I meet bloggers in person that I ‘know’ on screen, I am amazed by how much fun we have. I know I shouldn’t be. After all, if I like you on blog, I’m going to like you in person too. We had a fabulous evening – thanks to all of you for turning up!
So that’s the Writers Festivals over for another year. And now, M and I have to start working on our negotiation skills for our leave-passes for next year.
