3rd annual amerging writers festival

I've had an excellent weekend, dominated by the 3rd annual Emerging Writers Festival, which came to a close tonight.

I founded the event back when I was working as the Artistic Director of Express Media, and it's been fantastic seeing the event flourish. This year it really seemed to come into its own. Huge rounds of rapturous applause to Steve Grimwade (of Going Down Swinging and 3RRR's Aural Text fame) for devising a broad, inclusive and thought-provoking program that drew in writers from around the country, and which ensured indigenous representation at almost every session; and to the Express Media team, especially Esther and Rohini, for and all the volunteers, for an amazing job.

I let my hair down at Friday's opening night party at Trades Hall (which featured a stirring speech by keynote speaker Christos Tsiolkas, as well as speeches by the Deputy Lord Mayor of Melbourne, and a bigwig from Arts Victoria; and also the fun of literary speed dating, which paired up eight emerging writers with eight publishers and literary types); so much so that I was among the very last to leave...

Saturday I facilitated a panel called IDENTITY: GET OVER IT! which featured a range of writers discussing the construction, representation and diversity of identities in contemporary writing (no bloggers, alas, which now I think about it, is a major way of presenting an identity - certainly I'm sure that those of you who are regular readers of my blog would have constructed a view of my personal identity that is perhaps quite different to that held by some of my colleagues, and even that held by some of my old friends).

Saturday night was the festival party, SCRABBLE, which featured a fantastic array of live music and spoken word, including MC Lioness and Joelistics from TZU; Citizen (aka Tom Keily from Sydney, a superb spoken word performer); reading by contributors to the latest issue of Voiceworks magazine; a so-wrong-its-right dance performance by the Voiceworks crew set to cheesy 70's music, and which commented on Ocker male stereotypes and homophobia; and lastly, the most perfect merging of spoken word and rock music I've ever seen: the pairing of poet and writer Sean Whelan with The Mime Set. Imagine a musical cross between Mogwai and The Dirty Three, with the addition of a female vocalist, and Sean's whimsical, sorrowful, heartfelt and inspired spoken word, and you'll have some idea of just how much I was enthralled....

Today I facilitated a round table about WRITING SUCCESS STORIES before coming home and having a nap, then went back into closing drinks at Young and Jacksons - not a recommended venue, to be honest; it's a bit too upmarket these days...

So, a great weekend.

Added bonuses:

• Collingwood flogged the Hawks in round two of the AFL - hopefully I'll even get to a game soon!
• I just watched the film Love and Other Catastrophes and found it just as engaging, sweet and moving as I did when it was first released at the cinema (when we went to a preview screening of it back in 1996 I laughed to loudly my then boyfriend was embarassed!)
• My friend and ex-colleague Bec, whose wedding I went to in Glasgow last year, is back in town with her husband Bob for the Australian leg of their wedding, which is taking place in Venus Bay over Easter, so I got to catch up with them both on Friday arvo. While Bec was at the hairdressers I took Bob on a mini-gallery crawl. It was so cool to see them again, and I can't wait til Easter, when I head down to Venus Bay for the wedding! A bunch of us - including the lovely Adam Ford, instigator of the house-fun, have hired a holiday house for the long weekend. I'm soooooo looking forward to getting out of Melbourne for a couple of days!
  

Right now though, I'm going to bed. Feel free to add comments. I'd so love to hear from some of the regular blog lurkers - if you don't say something, I may be forced to add a stats counter just so I know how many of you are actually taking the time to read my meanderings!

PS - after such an inspired weekend, I hereby vow to start writing and performing spoken word again soon. Hell, I might even pick up my novel again!