The Writers Tent 2007
The Festival at Camperdown Park began with the threat of rain. Sydneysiders will recall the week leading up to the Newtown Festival was atrocious - the only good thing was a park covered in lush, green grass.
Programme
11.00am Performance Poets
We started the day with half an hour of the best poets in town. Local girl Collen Burke read from her latest work, Fermenting, which is her tenth book of poetry. Colleen is also know for her biography of poet Marie EJ Pitt, Doherty's Corner, and is co-editor of The Turning Wave - Poems and Songs of Irish Australia.
Benito di Fonzo (pictured) and Sarah Mae Sherringham (below) entertained with a special, high energy performance.
11.30am Crime Fiction: Leah Giarratano & Katherine Howell
Thanks to Kylie Mason from Pan Macmillan who chaired this thoroughly enjoyable session on Australian Crime Writing. Her two authors, Leah Giarratano and Katherine Howell have both recently been published to both popular and critical acclaim. In their session they described the process of writing, and the source for their inspiration. In Katherine's case she'd had many false starts until she used her background as an ambulance paramedic to underpin her story. Leah's tale, about a killer who is hunting pedaphiles, seems to come straight from her case files and the work she does as a psychologist helping the severly disturbed.
12.30pm Australian Icon: Tom Keneally
The delightful Tom Keneally enetertained the tent with his story of meeting Poldek Pfefferberg who told him the story of Oskar Schindler. Tom told of meeting Steven Spielberg for the first time, when Poldek decides he'll tag along. Tom explains politely that in all probability Spielberg only wants to meet the bloke who wrote the book. "Nonsense", says Poldek, "I know his mother" - which of course he did.
1.15pm Advance Australia Where? Hugh Mackay
With the federal election just a week way Hugh Mackay's viewpoint was very much in demand in this session. Hugh's presentation took us through the time he refers to as 'The Dreamy Period', a time when we lost interest in the global picture and instead concentrated on ourselves. It was a period that he sees as defined by the number of reality TV programmes, home makeovers, backyard renovations etc. He talked about the record level of debt we all sustain, and correctly forecast the outcome of the Federal election.
2.00pm Chick Lit
In conversation with her publisher Larissa Edwards, Anita Heiss, one of Australia's hottest new chick lit authors, entertained with a glimpse into the life of her heroine Alice Aigner. Alice, a serial dater bored rigid by her married, mortgaged and motherly former classmates, decides to prove a woman can have a man, marriage, career, kids and a mind of her own in the unputdownable Not Meeting Mr Right.
3.00pm Fantasy at its Finest
Our thanks to Linda Funnell, publisher from Harper Collins and a great supporter of The Writers' Tent at Newtown Festival. Linda pulled together a fantastic panel of fantasy writers including Traci Harding, Karen Miller and Ian Irving. Their session just showed how different fantasy writers are from run-of-the-mill fiction writers. The three authors held nothing back, sharing the secrets of their craft and the hidden places inside themselves where they find their next creations.
4.00pm The Chaser
Standing room only at the tent as Julian Morrow and his two colleagues took us through the highs and lows of the year for the Chaser. Admitting that they were all exhausted from such a long year of programming Julian confessed that they had no idea where they'd end up next year. One thing he was sure of, there'd be no Chaser on any channel in the first half of the year.
Other photos from the day.
