LiteraryMinded's New Digs - Crikey!

LiteraryMinded's new digs.

The folks over at Crikey thought LiteraryMinded was just the kind of litblog they were looking for and have adopted me! As they use a WordPress platform I have had to shift. Luckily this was not the kind of move that involved the physical transference of loads of boxes of books, as in non-virtual life – just a few clicks – one for you – to here.

PLEASE update any blogrolls and links to LiteraryMinded to the new address.

PLEASE update your RSS feeds! All the same content will be over there – plus, I’ll be blogging slightly more often (three times a week) – you don’t want to miss out on all the reviews, interviews and other lit-loving things I have lined up.

NOTE: To comment on the new blog, Crikey requires you to sign up to WordPress. All you have to do is put in a username and email, simple! This is just so I don’t get spammers and other net nonsense in the comment streams.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me.

By the way, even though this will be bringing me a whole new set of readers, I won’t forget whose always been here. I am so grateful to those of you who read me often and link to me, it is because of you that things like this happen. Cheers!

From Unpublished to Published

How satisfying it is to be right about a book! Amy Vought Barker has been awarded the Queensland Premier’s Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript for Omega Park. You might remember Amy from my series of 'Best Unpublished Books' posts, and my strong support for her creative, experimental project Remix My Lit, which is still up and running.

Amy had to read from her manuscript during the Brisbane Writers' Festival, straight after Helen Garner (who took out the Best Fiction award in the QLD Prem’s), and she chose to read the extract that I selected for my post on the book – a strong, emotive passage (check it out). After Amy’s reading, Helen Garner grasped her on the arm, and told her it was ‘terrific’. Amy says the reading was ‘one of the most intense experiences on my life’. She better get used to it!

Photo of Amy Vought Barker courtesy of Tony Phillips for the Queensland Government.

About mid next year I will be able to present to you three published books which were in my unpublished book posts, and hopefully more afterwards, or at least subsequent works from these writers. Not to mention the fact that they have all been picked up by publishers the writers nominated as ideal – UQP, Scribe, and Text. I’m not sure I can mention specifics until they’re closer to release, but keep an eye out for further updates...

I am still looking at doing the ‘Best Unpublished Manuscripts’ again sometime, but holding it as a competition with a prize of not just exposure on LM, but something of use for the writer such as a mentorship, or extract published in a journal. I’ll keep you posted. Any ideas or offers please email literaryminded [at] gmail [dot] com.

Congratulations to Amy and the other writers!

Keep an eye on the blog later in the week too because I will be making a very big announcement about LiteraryMinded's *new home* with the cool folks over at Crikey.com...

David Foster Wallace

Many have blogged about the incredibly sad suicide of David Foster Wallace. I didn’t know what to say at first because it is only through his death that I have come to him and his obviously amazing work. I found the nature of this encounter sad and strange. But I have learnt a lot over the past week. Still – others have said it better and said it before me. Here is a small array of links to pieces by and about him which I found interesting, enlightening, beautiful, often depressing, and all necessary:

Personal recollections by people who had contact with him (via I Am Excited About)

Wallace's speech to students commencing their studies 2005 (via I Am Excited About)

Video - interview on the Charlie Rose show (via The Elegant Variation)
I know this looks long but it is so worth watching. Just pause the video and let it go until about a third of the way through for the DFW interview. Watch it all the way to the end. His self-awareness, intelligence and articulation are so charming. I love hearing him talk about his love of film and David Lynch in particular...

and see his essay on being on the set of David Lynch's Lost Highway

Good People - David Foster Wallace, from The New Yorker (via Susan Johnson)
Do yourself a favour and read this short story.

Video - DFW on postmodern aesthetic combined with emotional truths

The NY Times obituary

Books by David Foster Wallace

Feel free to add your own in the comments.

Late Connections - Aileen La Tourette

2008, Ilura Press, 978921325052


It’s a shame to read a story that feels as though it has been wrestled into the wrong medium. Aileen La Tourette’s Late Connections might have made a good dramatic play with its style, overt exposition, and historical setting. We begin in Paris, where seamstress Annie Doulard works on the dress of Marie. Marie’s husband, Gilles La Tourette had once made the mistake of not paying enough attention to the seamstress when he was studying under Charcot (along with Freud) years before, and Annie was a patient. Annie (whose real name is Rose) decides to dress as a widow to be pitied, and approach Dr La Tourette (the real man who unveiled Tourette’s syndrome) in his office with a demand and a gun.

Strong motivation and a strong focus are confused by other motivations that pop up (and continue all through the novel) of Rose/Annie actually committing crimes as part of a ‘sisterhood’ thing, feeling empathy for the repressed wife and the sad, unseen daughter living in her dead brother’s shadow. Rose/Annie’s characterisation is all over the place. Her ambitions and motivations are confused and skewed. If it is deliberate (to display her mental unbalance) it is not handled deftly enough, probably because knowledge of early 20th Century fashion, psychology, feminism and cultural movements are too often flaunted and too obviously interjected. I can see the spirit of the age, and the sense of movement and revolutions in thoughts and aesthetics that the author is trying to get across. In a play this could have been done visually – a simple Chanel suit on a character, instead of a whole ridiculously distracting subplot with Chanel herself, and with writer Colette thrown in for good measure.

The author also switches voice many times during the novel. We have Rose, Marie, Gilles La Tourette, the daughter Genevieve, and even Freud. Again, in a play, all these voices could have taken on their own characteristics, aided by actors. On the page, their drippy over-analyses of self and situation (and they all cry so often) are annoying – except for the first Freud chapter, which actually compelled me suddenly and drew me into the world. It is completely, stylistically different, and could have even stood alone as a short story. Freud sits on a train, knowing that the letter he has received is not from the man whose signature is on the page. Yet he is compelled to go to him. His mind is driven again and again to this notion while he also observes other passengers, his past and present, and the world outside. Aileen La Tourette obviously does know a lot about all of these true historical characters, but it seems that it is with Freud that she is most comfortable, and the writing flows much better and much stronger than anywhere else in the book.

La Tourette is trying to show the revolutionary natures of the women in the book, against the patriarchal doctrines of professionals, husbands, and fathers. This is probably why she also chose to include the Chanel/Collette subplot, where there is also an erotic tension between the women. The problem, here, is that all the women are so aware of being revolutionary. The thoughts and spoken lines seem so contrived and far-fetched it had me groaning instead of going ‘yes!’ in celebration of womanhood. La Tourette needs to trust her readers’ knowledge of history and culture more - we know a woman living alone, a woman writing, a career woman or a woman raising skirt hems is a revolutionary in this context.

Also, there is a distinct lack of drive and conflict – Rose runs away from the Salpetriere and finds friends, finds work, then when that ends very flatly and suddenly she just becomes a seamstress again – oh and how convenient that Madame Raymonde can provide her with a few clients! What does Rose want? First revenge, then escape, then to be like Chanel, then redemption (did the revenge just fly out the window? And where was the urge for redemption while bathing in the sea and spying on Chanel in a graveyard?). The ending comes abruptly, where another character suddenly goes from angry to forgiving in the blink of an eye. It all comes much too easily and I felt cheated, as I had read on confused about what I wanted resolved, but wanting something resolved nonetheless, and I didn’t feel as though I got anything satisfying.

I feel it’s a shame, as this book really had potential in its ideas and style, but needed more direction before it was published. It needs less cheekiness and flippancy, and more focus and flow. I’m also adamant it would have worked much better as a play, or perhaps a few short stories, each with interesting historical characters, not all squashed in together just because they were in Europe at the same time. Obviously the author is a descendant to some of the characters, and their stories are of course interesting, but I didn’t feel she had really gotten to know them. There are only some parts of the world she knows, others she has sensed, and others she is guessing. By this I mean her fictional world, the world of her making, not the actual history. I didn’t feel she had clarified and solidified her fictional world and characters, and the exact way she wanted the reader to engage with them, before she set out writing. If rendered in a way that transports the reader, draws them in, and leaves them walking away with a real, coherent feeling for this revolutionary world and admiration for its characters, it would have succeeded.

What I Did on Indigenous Literacy Day

On Wednesday September 3, booksellers, publishers and members of the public got involved with Indigenous Literacy Day. Of books sold on the day from participating retailers 10% was donated to the Indigenous Literacy Project. Around the country, various events and fundraisers were also held.

My colleague Katie, and I, attended an event at the State Library of Victoria, run by the Victorian Writers’ Centre and chaired by Joel Becker, VWC President. It featured talks by writers Alexis Wright, John Marsden, Arnold Zable and Adrian Hyland.

The event was apparently filmed for SlowTV, but at time of writing it is not yet up on the site.

On the way there, we dropped in at Reader’s Feast bookstore, which also held an event during the day. The cashier said they had over 100 people in store for the event, and a great many customers purchasing on the day particularly in aid of the cause. I was on the lookout for Janet Frame’s short fiction, but as they didn’t have the collection I bought John Marsden’s Hamlet, which is something else on my (exorbitant) list.

The speakers at the event were to talk about how literacy has made an impact on their lives. There were many interesting points raised about literacy and the project itself. To sum up, all writers made note of the fact that literacy enables empowerment of the voice of a people who may not otherwise be heard. But they also all recognised problems with placing too much emphasis on English and the written word when other forms of literacy are also valid and important. Oral storytelling, for example, carries ancient stories and wisdoms rhythmically into the present. It was raised that the Indigenous languages themselves are something that could be embraced and learnt by the wider community (as the group Australians Against Racism is doing).

Language itself was given life and vivacity by the speakers, expressing the way that it enables a person to see the world differently. One example was Zable’s story of a Chinese man whom he had sat with in silence many times. When it was time for Zable to move on, he wanted to thank the man for his company and the time they’d shared together. He expressed it to a translator who came back to him and said that the Chinese man said he should write a couplet about his experience. Zable thought it an enormous challenge to fit all those moments into one tiny couplet, but he did so, and on the last line he struggled with whether to write ‘heart’ or ‘mind’ – he settled for heart. When it was translated back for the Chinese man he learned that the Chinese character for heart, and the character for mind, were one and the same. You can imagine how different one’s perceptions may be, based on the languages they have grown with, and the languages they learn.

What was also expressed was how rich the Indigenous languages are, in that they contain the knowledge of centuries of this land. The languages then hold keys to protecting the land and environment from the chaos that progress has wreaked. We must also respect the Indigenous individuals and communities learning English and find texts of relevance and interest to them.

All in all, it was of course a complex discussion, but a wonderfully necessary one. And the point still came out of it that the joy of being able to engage with literature, and then utilise these new language skills to tell the stories of their own people, or to have a voice day to day in a changing world, is an extremely positive and rewarding step. It just needs respect and an understanding of the importance of preserving the ancient languages at every step.

There was an auction on the night with items kindly donated by publishers and other organisations, and donations were also made at the door. John Marsden outbid me for a five-year membership to the Victorian Writers’ Centre – doh!

It is not yet known how much was raised this year as the bookseller and publisher figures will take about six weeks, but apparently there was great enthusiasm for the project Australia-wide and plenty more Indigenous children in remote communities will be seeing books and resources in the coming year.

If you would like to support the project, click here.

Join the Revolution! An interview with Antony Loewenstein on The Blogging Revolution

The Blogging Revolution, Melbourne University Press, September (Australia), 9780522854909

The bloggers and dissidents that Antony Loewenstein meets up with in The Blogging Revolution are from repressive regimes Iran, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and China. Some face torture and imprisonment for speaking out - not just about political issues, but on details of their social or personal lives and beliefs. Some use the medium to garner an audience beyond their own country - to express frustration of their situation, and give others better opportunities for understanding their culture and the individuals within it. Some bloggers utilise the medium to educate others in their own area - on topics like women's rights and sexual health.

One reason Loewenstein's book is important is that it provides access to other voices than those generally heard in the mainstream media in Western countries. Loewenstein notes that all manner of bloggers and dissidents on the ground in some countries could be consulted on major news stories (such as the Iraq invasion) for a true journalistic balance of opinion, but are often ignored in favour of an easy approach. In the digital age, where many people possess global interest and are starting to get much of their information online, the mainstream need to sit up and take notice.

I wrote in Bookseller+Publisher: 'The most enjoyable thing when reading the book is the one-on-one moments Loewenstein has with the men and women (so often young), talking to them about their country, their daily life, hopes, and why they blog.' There are some beautiful scenes of interaction and experience which make this a highly readable narrative, not just a political book.

Since reading the book I have been reading and revisiting many of the blogs and news sites Loewenstein recommends whenever I get a chance. He kindly agreed to answer some questions for me about The Blogging Revolution:

You obviously display hope, in your book, about the potential of the internet and blogging for worldwide democratic change, but you also mention it is only at the beginning of its potential. What are some of the main things hindering it?

The internet is not in itself a revolutionary force, though it certainly has allowed countless new voices to be heard across the world. I like the description by leading Chinese blogger, Isaac Mao, who said in early August: 'Blogs encourage young people to become more individual'. That is incendiary in many places around the world.

When visiting a country like Iran – a population of 70 million, the majority under 30 years old and millions of web users – it’s immediately clear that solely relying on state-run media isn’t an option (dull, vehemently anti-US and uncritical). I spent time with writers and bloggers, some of whom were moderate Islamists; a term we rarely hear in the West; speak passionately about the ability to engage with issues that traditionalists would rather be ignored (sex before marriage, Israel etc.)

What hinders the demographic potential of the web – and we should never forget that in every place I visited; Iran, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and China; the concept of political reform is defined differently – is the authoritarian impulse of many regimes. It’s a relatively new phenomenon to have unfiltered speech. Sadly, many Western internet multinationals, such as Yahoo, Google, Cisco and Microsoft, are assisting nations such as China to implement draconian censorship programs.

But I remain relatively hopeful that greater openness is occurring thanks to the web. The only problem for the West, however, is that the Bush administration has left Washington’s reputation in tatters. This is something I celebrate.

Your book is very balanced in political opinion, but you do mention that the West assists the ongoing repression of individuals in some of these countries (like the US in its support of some leaders). Is this to do with economic interests of Western countries (in the interest of their own citizens)? Is there any way things can be done differently?

Governments always act in their self-interest, never any other reason (no matter what the Bush administration has told the world for the last eight years.) Many Western leaders realise that true democracy is a danger to, say, ensuring natural resources or 'stability.' For example, if every Middle East country had an open and free election it is likely that Islamists would come to power, vehemently anti-Western.

Iraq is now sold as 'bringing democracy' to the heart of Mesopotamia but in fact we’ve recently discovered that leading Western oil companies will be getting a generous cut of the country’s vast oil resources. Was this the real point of the war? It was certainly one of the reasons.

In my book, I examine how the rest views the West and it’s not a pretty picture. Hypocrisy is order of the day. When its comes to the internet, it’s becoming increasingly clear that US foreign policy is an obstacle to a country’s advancement. Many bloggers, even in a place like Saudi Arabia, often admire American society but despise its policies. Democracy is likely to come without the 'help' of Washington.

Personally I know that many people of my generation get almost all their information and entertainment from the web as opposed to newspapers and television. Do you think it is going to be up to the youth to enhance the potential of the online medium for democratic change?

Almost always, in the countries that feature in my book, it’s the young who embrace new technology (though, of course, in a place like China the rate of deep poverty makes web access impossible for hundreds of millions of citizens.) It’s important to remember that 'democratic change' is occurring across the world but often not in the way the West would like.

Take China. The biggest online population in the world, 250 million and growing, and study after study appears to show a high level of satisfaction with the regime’s authoritarian stance. The vast majority of people apparently support extensive web filtering. Economic freedom has revolutionised the country, while maintaining a lid on political change. Is this the kind of 'change' that many of us would like, when human rights abuses are still rampant in the Communist land? No, but lecturing China about its obligations is not the way forward. Engagement is essential and talking to Chinese bloggers about their attitude that Western media hates their country for challenging American hegemony.

What is the greatest challenge for some of these bloggers who have grown up in a community where words like ‘human rights’, ‘free speech’ and ‘democracy’ are quite alien?

Having the guts to be heard and published online, when the risk for doing so is often imprisonment, torture or worse. There are any number of brave souls - often anonymous and unprotected by middle class trappings - who write a blog post simply talking about, say, local corruption. It can be act of incredible discipline. I met a male blogger in Cairo who had been raped in a police station for protesting police torture. The irony wasn’t lost on him.

Of course, we shouldn’t forget that many web users across the world have no interest in politics and want to go online to meet boys and girls, download pirated films or watch softcore pornography. It’s only the select few who dare play the dangerous game of political roulette.

I was fascinated by the culture behind closed doors and on the internet in Iran (such as the party you attended where they drank, and talked about Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits quite obsessively). Do you think some people there just accept this dual existence as a way of life the way that many in the West just accept the decisions of governments and higher powers?

Very much so. In Iran, and also Saudi Arabia, many young people feel compelled to live dual lives, one face for the public and other behind closed days. The disconcerting obsession with Mark Knopfler in Iran meant, I was told, that many saw his music as the sound of freedom. And here we are in the West just playing Dire Straits on easy listening radio stations.

It’s readily understood in many repressive regimes that official rules are just that, and designed to be subverted. Officials know in Iran that most people buy and drink contraband alcohol; some smoke pot, dance to Western music and have sex out of marriage. In fact, at one such party in Tehran – when a number of bloggers introduced me to their social life and forced me to dance to the sounds of Persian techno – I was surprised how similar the goings-on were to Sydney. Women entered in the hijab and soon transformed into voluptuous, mini-skirted wearing vixens. And no, I’m not exaggerating.

You acknowledge that any kind of democratic change in these countries would have to come slowly, unlike the gung-ho invasion of Iraq. This is because of the aforementioned aspect that the citizens in these countries are quite used to living a certain way, even if they do live in fear and frustration. Is this another reason why it is important we understand them as individuals, as people within a society and culture, before we attempt to assist their freedoms?

Democracy can never be imported. Never. In a place such as Cuba, where the web community is tiny, partly due to the absurd US embargo and Castro’s fear of free speech, there appears to be a desire for a modernised socialism. Sure, American hip-hop is massively popular with the young, but getting food on the table is more important than aping unregulated capitalism.

Too many in the mainstream media gauge citizens in the non-Western world as how they can be useful to 'us.' They’re not really human beings, rather objects to be pitied or transformed. Our journalists need to do much more listening and less preaching. Freedom for a young woman in Damascus may be having the ability to pray five times a day at her local mosque but still admire Angelina Jolie.

Can you tell us a little about the fascinating contradictions within the Egyptian blogosphere (eg. them being some of the most endangered but also the most willing to talk)?

Egypt, one of the highest recipients of US aid annually, is not the 'moderate' nation often imagined in the West. Dictatorial President Hosni Mubarak runs a brutal police state that utilises the most heinous forms of torture. Bloggers and pro-democracy activists have in the last years created an environment where online media has become the place to read about torture, corruption and dissent.

Human Rights Watch researcher Elijah Zarwan said that, 'the bloggers have succeeded in doing something that years of standing on the street corner and shouting no to torture or no to the interior ministry had never managed to accomplish.'

I was surprised that so many bloggers were willing to be vocal about their grievances, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood, with whom I spent some time in Cairo and found their (public) face to be moderate and approachable. The power of that organisation is feared in the West, and mistakenly so. One of the great ironies of the Bush years, especially in a place like Egypt, has been the legitimisation of the message of Islamism; namely that a strong Islam can stand up to the West’s imperial designs and provide services that a weak US ally cannot.

I found the description of shopping malls in Saudi Arabia and the commercial values of the Chinese very disturbing. Did you find many bloggers speaking out against corporate power? Or the contradictions or conflictions within consumerist values compared to spiritual values?

In a number of countries I visited, an opposition to corporate power, especially emanating from the West, was clear. In China, for example, a distrust of Yahoo! due to its collusion with the authorities over 'subversive' online material. A growing nationalism was clear in many places, and a belief that development should happen without the assistance, or more likely meddling, of the Western powers.

The shopping malls in Saudi Arabia were something to behold. Glittering towers of commercial power, the separation of the genders in the country means that men and women are often apart and you see the unusual sight of men working in cosmetic’s shops (women are unable to work in most jobs.)

Of course, these icons of capitalist opulence are unobtainable for most people, forced to shop in less salubrious surroundings.

I was curious to note that many writers, dissidents and bloggers across the globe expressed an element of spirituality, though often not religiosity (something, in a Muslim country, that is usually illegal.) We shouldn’t presume that bloggers are automatically secularists who despise establishment power. Many are, but the loudest, in a place like Iran and Saudi Arabia, are often fundamentalists who fear the rise of a more Western society.

We rarely read about these issues in our myopic media. It’s far easier to simply report about Iran’s clownin President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his rantings.

In Cuba, many expressed frustration that they were missing out on speaking with and learning about the wider world due to the vast majority having no internet access. Since writing the book, has anything changed in the Cuban situation?

Cuba is slowly changing under new President Raul Castro. Fidel still allegedly maintains large control over the running of the state, but Raul is far more pragmatic. Internet access is largely impossible for most citizens, not least due to the cost. After the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a realisation that ideology had to come after putting food on the table. Of course, Fidel never trusted his people enough to allow totally free and fair elections, and Raul is likely to agree.

Cuba will probably follow the China Model, with greater economic empowerment but political repression. Although the country is not the gulag often described by its critics, dissidents are routinely jailed and freedom of the press is a foreign concept.

A number of Havana-based bloggers are starting to generate international attention with their witty and bold statements on the country’s future. They deserve our solidarity.

Is your book being printed elsewhere than Australia at this stage?

There is interest with overseas publishers, so watch this space and I’ll have a US speaking tour later in the year. Otherwise, many leading US bloggers have been attracted to the message of the book and will be covering the issues raised in it. Many are disillusioned with the mainstream’s collusion with the patriotic fervour that appeared after 9/11.

The back of the book contains a fantastic list of not just blogs, but news and information sites from all around the world and of all persuasions. Can you share with us about ten sites regularly visited by you that may give LM readers some interesting insight into individuals and situations in these countries?

Saudi Jeans

Written by a pro-Western, Saudi student, this offers a fascinating insight into one of the most repressive nations on earth (and backed by the US, of course.)

Danwei

The latest from the Chinese media and blogsophere.

Global Voices Online

A global network of bloggers who write about the political situation and media in virtually every country in the world.

Kamangir (Archer)

An Iranian-exile living in Canada explains life in present-day Iran.

Webnevesht
Iran’s former Vice President, Mohammad Ali Abtahi is a regular blogger from the 'reformist' perspective.

Mideast Youth

Various Middle East bloggers on life, love and politics.

EastSouthWestNorth

A Hong-Kong based blog that features the ins and outs of the Chinese web.

Committee to Protect Bloggers
A site dedicated to imprisoned and abused bloggers around the world.

Raising Yousuf and Noor: Diary of a Palestinian Mother

On-the-ground reporting from a blogger based in Gaza.

3arabawy

Documents the struggle for democracy in Egypt.

Thanks so much Antony.

Antony Loewenstein's website and blog.

Melbourne University Press Blogging Revolution website.

Melbourne Writers Festival 2008 Diary - Part 3

Saturday August 30

I've known for years I have to do something about the fact I've only read three of John Marsden's books. And now he's gone and adapted my favourite Shakespeare tragedy Hamlet. Unmissable. Especially when he talked with such genuine passion about his influences in the session 'Old Wine in New Bottles' on Saturday morning. 'To be derivative is to be human' he said, and accidents of intertextuality are inevitable. He doesn't believe in the great dread of imitating others, or fear of embracing a 'universal' theme, such as 'boy meets girl'. He says countless people will continue to create works carrying this theme in surprising and relevant ways. He spoke with fond memory about such writers as Enid Blyton, the eroticism of Ian Fleming as a teenage boy, Neville Schute, Tolstoy and Dickens. In regard to Shakespeare and Dickens he spoke of how they handled a great cast of characters and how many novels don't attempt to do so nowadays. Marsden related this to extraordinary writing from the unconscious, providing a profound reading experience.

Thankfully, John Marsden not only still writes, but teaches - and if only there were a world of teachers like him. At the time of posting I was also very inspired by his speech on Indigenous Literacy Day at the State Library of Victoria - but more on that soon.

Also on this panel was Lloyd Jones, who gave a delightful reading from Mister Pip and was very adamant that the lines between fiction and truth, history and literature, are and should be blurred, much to one audience member's disapproval! 'A poorly constructed sentence is a crime' he said. A most interesting point in an age of convergence. I found his honesty refreshing.

Fiona Capp spoke again on Musk & Byrne, and the session was chaired by ol' chocolate-eyed Kevin Rabelais (and no I didn't go just for him...).

Following this, I partook in remixing stories live on the big screen in Fed Square. My dodgy SMSs came up over funky visuals, music and voice readings by Michela Ledwidge, a real multimedia talent.

My friend and colleague Amy Barker (the soon-to-be published novelist Amy Vought Barker - but more on that later!), who was running the remix, was excited to see a kid getting enthusiastically involved, and his Mum's encouragement.

There were a few other remixers and lots of glassy-eyed tourists wondering what was going on. Sarah L'Estrange from ABC Radio National's The Book Show interviewed a few of us to find out about the project and how we were getting involved. I'll let you know when the story is on the radio and website. Overall, Amy thought it was a success. The remixes are available on the website, and there is another month to play with the stories and perhaps even get into the anthology.

I was supposed to go to more Saturday sessions, but by this stage I was quite happy to just relax and have a few drinks with new friends. I met some more great people, one of whom was really freaked out by seagulls - 'There's no f**king ocean - what are they doing here?'. We worked out our star signs, talked about what 'shoes' we fit into, and why you would put 'yes' on a wall. We also bought some armbands from a very scary little girl who was taking advantage of all the drunk writers in the square with her 3-for-1 deals (to buy a fishtank). I should have just given her a book.

Sunday August 31

I'm not sure what I was thinking, getting up so early after all those vodkas (and the further drinks with my flatmate upon returning home) but I got into Fed Square by 10am, all set for another session, and found myself instead in a fast food restaurant (shame!). It did, however, do the trick and I proceeded to the next session 'Liars Make the Best Writers' which became a jovial battle of wits between Mark Billingham, Michael Robotham and Matt Condon.

The audience got a great cackle out of Billingham's admission that when the guy in his novel performs incredibly in bed it's a kind of wish-fulfillment, and Robotham returned with the way his wife questions him on such sex scenes:

'who did you do that with?'

'no one honey'

'well who do you fantasise about doing that with?'

'only you honey'

'you're not doing that buddy!'

Billingham revealed a scary research moment when he posted a question to a forensic society forum, all very professional, and got some very helpful emails - but then he opened one that simply said 'I bury them naked'. Uh-oh! Billingham also hilariously ripped into writers who said they 'channel the voice' of their characters. He said he just 'makes shit up'. But Robotham protested, interjecting that in his first-person narratives, there is an element of the character taking over and helping to guide the narrative. Billingham was adamant that Robotham was at least partly full of crap.

Matt Condon shared how he had a character in his head for a really long time - a sort-of fat, gambling, aging guy - and the only problem was that it was based on a friend of his. Well, he eventually wrote a novel with this character in it and his friend called him up:

'Matt, I've just read your book.'

'Yep.' Oh shit.

'I've just gotta talk to you about something in it, can we meet for a drink?'

'Yeah, okay'. Crap.

And Matt got to the pub. His friend greeted him and then said

'That's the best character you've ever created!'

Something else that was talked about was genre vs literary fiction, an old conflict that many writers find quite tired, but then publishing and bookselling relies on categorisation. Billingham and Robotham are obviously crime writers, Billingham professing a love for economy, but Robotham saying he loves to make his prose more beautiful and descriptive. I felt Matt Condon was left aside a little in this discussion. I wanted to tell the room how a literary novel can be incredibly compelling through the mysteries and drives of its characters. Also, The Trout Opera does have elements of many genres - including grit, crime and mystery. I could have stuck up my hand but then it wouldn't have been a question, I would have just been another one of those statement-making festival guests who don't wait for the microphone but think everyone will (and should) hear them. Oh how many of these guests there were at MWF 08 - perhaps worse than any festival I've ever been to!

At 2:30 I was treated to a unique and moving reading of Anna Akhmatova's poetry in St Paul's Cathedral. The poems were read (and often in both Russian and English) bu Robert Dessaix, Anya Ulinich, David Francis, Helen Garner, Sophie Cunningham and Orlando Figes. The church was packed. My favourite reader was Dessaix, whose articulate, almost Shakespearean tones carried me away, even in Russian, where his voice became a soothing instrument. The great contrast of voices - old and young, male and female, and with varying accents (Australian, European, North American) also made it interesting, as well as the different ways the authors had come across her poetry. Some had written about her or her time and the struggles of similar Russians, others had been moved or inspired by just one piece, such as Helen Garner, who read 'Everything is Plundered, Betrayed, Sold'.

My final event of the festival was also my first time in the Capitol Theatre. I had deja vu of a dream I've had as soon as I saw the Walter Burleigh Griffin ceiling. I get this a lot actually when I travel, and it is always to do with places (therefore I guess it's mostly deja visite). Whether it's a memory vomit or somehow I have been there before, I find this comforting.

The session was 'From Freidan to Feministas' with Catherine Lumby, Emily Maguire, Susan Maushart and Monica Dux. A few points that came out of it were - that it was a shame women were depicted often as being victims of feminism rather than beneficiaries of it; that one happy 20-something woman can be used by the mainstream media as evidence or a barometer that feminism need not exist, or is irrelevant and over; and that there is a focus in mainstream media on three or four supposed feminist-inspired crises (eg. women being single too long and missing out on babies). It was raised that for many young women the word 'feminist' isn't embraced because they imagine radical hairy-legged lesbian stereotypes and shy away from labeling, even if they do subscribe to the basic notions of choice, fairness and equality. It was also raised that class, race, sexual and gender prejudice were far from being over, and that it's not about 'tolerance' at all but a true 'respect' for difference.


Lumby, who is actively involved in education on gender issues, with sporting groups and other organisations, says 'bugger the mainstream media' and 'put wheels on the ideas'. She says that on many levels there is far too much focus on image in society.

Emily Maguire discussed the cliche that there aren't any young feminists - it is apalling that evidence she has provided again and again has been ignored by the mainstream media - that there are not just young feminists (embracing the ideas) but active young feminists (who are indeed putting wheels on ideas). She ended with 'where are the young feminists? Pay attention people, they're everywhere!' and got a great cheer.

Susan Maushart defined a feminist as 'someone who listens to women', and I thought that was a really apt descrition. It could most definitely be a man as well. She stated that the problem with feminism and its appearance is that it has no clear antagonists, unlike in its early days, and that is why in the public consciousness it can appear to be confused. She ended with 'Barbie is my sister too' - a great statement on the importance of avoiding judgement.

After a last flight into the Festival Club for the hilarious comedy stylings of librarian Josh Earl, and a final festival club glass of wine, I was off. I think Festival Director Rosemary Cameron did a great job with the program and I really look forward to next year.