Winter

Winter because it's the season after Autumn... Autumn - leaves... Yeah... It makes sense I swear.
Following the Bendigo Writers Festival my brain felt as though it had been through a marathon of intelligence and knowledge and was slightly winded and bruised. I am incredibly grateful for the experience of being able to learn from the array of speakers. I feel as though each of them brought something completely different to the festival and I was able to learn about a large array of topics rather than just looking at the one, which was my goal at the start because my interests are so varying. Now though, I think the knowledge needs to stew a while and so I focus on awards. Obviously there was the assessment task where we were expected to present an award to one of the guests of the festival, for a reason that we have created. Bronchitis kept me from participating in this, however it was an idea that stayed with me regardless and throughout the festival, irrelevant to the assessment task, I found myself thinking of awards that I could present each speaker with. And so, I made a list of the speakers and events that I went to and awarded each on with their own individual title, indicative of how I felt the session went and their overall impact on me. This simple task is a form of reflection as I look back over the sessions and consider the ideas that have been presented to me and the overall success of my involvement. Below I've made a list of the speakers that I saw during the Friday and Saturday of the festival and the awards that I'd made up for them by the end of their talks.

Friday @ Ulumbarra theatre

TMts Opening session with the line up of writers: LOOK AT ME awards to all 

TMts Session 2 with Sean Williams and James Moloney: Ying & Yang awards

Keeping up Appearances with Gabrielle Tozer & Jaclyn Moriarty: 'There are 2 types' awards

TMts Session 12 with Isabelle Carmody: Best Chick award 

Saturday @ Trades Hall

Girls, boys with James Maloney, Jaclyn Moriarty, Diana Sweeney: Battle of the sexes award

Knowledge is power with Peter Doherty: Smart cookie award... like, the smartest cookie. All of the cookies.

What Music Says with Doug Falconer, Peggy Frew, Mick Thomas: Tortured artist awards

Saturday night @ Ulbumbarra theatre

Julian Assange: Best bloke award. All of the awards. Just take them all.

Assange you glad you came?

Okay, that pun was terrible... but it was the only thing that I could think of with the limited time I feel like I have get my thoughts onto "paper" surrounding the live stream interview with Julian Assange.
I wish that I was smarter so that I had the intellectual ability to vocalise and transcribe that interview. Though I feel smarter just from listening to him speak, I don't feel like I could ever perfectly explain the greatness that was in that room.

In fact, instead of insulting every one by trying to reinterpret or explain the depth of Assange's ideas and comments I'll let him showcase it himself:

 Again I am reminded that there are good people in the world, people with a deeper purpose then their own selfish fulfilment. One idea in particular that I liked from the session was that as a person who must absorb everything around you, you must have quite a thin skin. But then as someone who receives a lot of criticism you must also develop a thick skin and the trouble lies in being able to switch from one to the other as need be.

The leaf was green for just a moment before it shrivelled and died

To continue on with these leaf analogies that admittedly even I'm struggling to follow, just as I feel as though I've caught a glimpse of the deep colour of this leaf and am about to hold it in my palm, it turns to brown dust and slides through my fingers. It's the last day of the festival, and I have bronchitis. As wise historians have noted "ain't no body got time for dat." So I'm feeling quite run down as I go into my next reading and half way into Isobel Carmody's talk I start coughing so uncontrollably that I'm forced to leave. The same thing happens in my next session, and I finally give up on trying to be in public today and go home to bed.
Thankfully, the insightful Carmody gives enough to ponder in just half an hour.

During the time that I was able to breathe and listen to her I had the chance to ask her a question. It's not as if this question was burning inside my brain but I really wanted to step outside of my comfort zones a little and become immersed in the festival by being a part of the conversation. So, when they hand me the microphone I say "there is a lot of repetition within story lines, particularly in the young adult genre, do you ever feel resentful towards new writers who seem to adopt ideas you've previously written within their text? Do you ever struggle to come up with new ideas, knowing they might have already been written?" Not too bad of a question, if I do say so myself. Her response was intelligent and insightful and very Carmody-esk, explaining how she writes as the story comes to her and never pays a thought to anyone else's stories, and that as long as other writers are writing the same way and being honest to their own ideas and thoughts then she would never feel resentful.
Alongside this one other idea of hers resonates and stays with me: "Your parents and your family forms you... but you will be free." I understand that when she says this she's talking to the high school students present but this discussion, surrounding what cages you and forms you as a person particularly speaks to me. I believe that book lovers and art lovers feel deeper than most people, and Carmody speaks to her audience in a way that resonates with these types of thinkers, appealing to their sense of wonderment and self discovery. I particularly enjoy listening to her talks, and through the coughing a spluttering I manage to breathe enough (outside of the auditorium) to wait and snap a picture with her after her talk.

Oh look, a leaf...

This leaf (please see previous post if my referring to ideas as leaves confuses you) is still pretty far away and not quite clear yet, it must have flown in from elsewhere. But, I've been having this thought surrounding the idea of what influences the attendees of writing festivals.

Obviously, the authors there are so for a few clear reasons: to advertise their writing and their work, to discuss their methods, and to teach a younger generation. There are some obvious reasons for the audience to attend as well: being able to hear from their favourite authors, having their questions answered, or to draw inspiration from them, but for me it doesn't seem as though these reasons could account for the majority of the audience. 

On Thursday I volunteered to assist with the Sam the story Tram session of the festival, which is basically a session for young children where they board the tram, sing songs as it travels through Bendigo, hop off at the Bendigo Gold Mines, read a few story books, and then travel back. I had a few thoughts while I was assisting with this: there seem to be a lot more mum's (13) present with their children than dads (1), what kind of organisation goes into planning such an activity and who was in charge of this, this coffee isn't great and not nearly enough to suffice being awake at 7.30am, and a lot of the kids actually seem pretty disinterested... actually most of the kids... actually are any kids singing along or listening? At this point I looked around the tram and noticed that 5% of the kids actually seemed entertained by the singing, dancing, and story telling, and 100% of the adults seem entertained. While the kids are staring out their windows and playing with a loose thread on the seat of the tram, every single one of the adults present are singing and clapping along to Big Red Car.
And here's where this experience links in with my wonderings about what motivates the audience of a writers festival. I begin to wonder do we as adults have an innate attraction to story telling? Perhaps we become so entangled with the stressors of adulthood that we inadvertently seek opportunities to act as children and be told a story, using the excuse that our children will enjoy enjoy the event, or that we're going for academic reasons.

As I said, the leaf is still a little blurry but on Day 2 of the festival this is where my thoughts are at.

Panoramic snapshot from Sam the Story Train

Words fall like leaves...

... If those leaves were welded to a iron tree, and it was the dead of winter, and all of the good leaves were already long brown, shrivelled and swept away. In short, I've got very few words as I enter day one of the Bendigo Writers in Action festival. This prompts the question that when surrounded by brilliant people and an abundance of information, will inspiration grow within myself or deflate in insignificance? At the end of this festival will this blog be a mess of murky, mismatched entries? Or will I be able to insert the light of insight into them that I can feel burning at the back of my brain but can't name or see clearly just yet?

I guess we will find out...

Nonetheless, I have decided on my time table and sessions that I'll attend over the course of the next 4 days. I've heard other people mapping out their sessions based on the topic that they'll be doing their assignments on, however lacking that kind of pre-determined direction myself I've chosen sessions that simply appeal to my passions: young adult literature, kids, world topics, music, and religion. So I have quite a large array of topics that i'll be immersed in over the weekend and I'm desperately hoping that by the end of it something close to the assignment requirement will fall out of my brain.

I do think it's important though, to attend sessions that excite and spark something within your soul and mind because though the surface intent of the weekend may be to pass a subject, you might find that you are able to gain a lot more in your soul, heart, and mind then just credit points.

So, am I daunted by the oncoming festival and feeling nugatory in comparison to some of my favourite authors and speakers? Yes. Am I feeling lost in a sea of subject requirements and anxious that I won't meet the mark?  Yes. But, am I feeling excited and impassioned about the journey and discovering who I will be by Monday? Yes.