Newcastle Writers Festival Saturday Recap

Yesterday was a big day for me at the Newcastle Writers Festival  and I had the great pleasure of doing
some reading from Sublime Planet at Sprocket's Cafe, and the even greater pleasure of listening to some other wonderful poets reading too, amidst the delicious scent of freshly roasted coffee and pastries.  After that it was straight over to the Lock Up Cultural Centre for a conversation on the State of Australian Poetry with Jean Kent, David Musgrave, Anna Kerdijk Nicholson, and Philip Salom, who all spoke with depth and lucidity about a range of questions as wide reaching as the Australian voice, the importance of indigenous poetry, the impact  of creative writing courses, the impact of the Internet, why we are in a "golden age" of poetry (and the great divide too), the impact of small poetry houses, and lots of advice for readers and writers.  The value of reading literary journals and reading the work of others was mentioned - you could do a lot worse than starting with these four amazing poets, but we did reference this article by Kent MacCarter at Cordite: http://cordite.org.au/essays/australian-print-poetry-and-the-small-press-whos-doing-the-books/ and Mascara was mentioned several times as well.

I skipped (in my heeled boots) straight over from the Lock up to the Newcastle Business Centre where the crowds were queuing (and a few people were hoping for last minute standing room tickets as the session was sold-out) for my session with Ramona Koval.  I'm now regretting that I didn't hand my camera to someone in the Ramona Koval audience like I did with the State of Poetry session (and big thanks to that photographer, whose name I didn't get but who chased me out of the building to give me my camera back), so I have no photos of my session, but hopefully someone else will put a few photos up somewhere and in the meantime you'll have to take my word on it that Ramona was her usual bubbly, chatty, delightful self, interspersing deep wisdom with tidbits of light-hearted and sometimes poignant biography and reading to us about the Kama Sutra and the ribald antics of the Romans, despite having bronchitis.  The audience was lively and engaged and I'm sure we could easily have gone on for another hour as hands were still waving to ask questions, if the timekeeper at the back didn't gently and subtly tap her watch and wink at me so I was reminded to close the session.

There's still another day of activities at the NWF and if you're anywhere in the vicinity you really must get over to experience the amazing atmosphere, and sessions on such things as writing the thriler with Jaye Ford, Wendy James and Caroline Overington, the David Marr hosted session with Major General John Cantwell on his memoir Exit Wounds, Felicity Biggins' super popular session with John Wiltshire, Amanda Hooten and Miriam Margolyes on Pride and Prejudice (sold-out twice over but I think they've moved the venue to allow for more tickets), and many many more - you can check out the program here: http://static.squarespace.com/static/50a1efd1e4b039333cbb56c1/t/5147a960e4b0d224b440ee97/1363650912679/NWF%20new%20SPREAD.pdf

and if you missed it all, don't fret.  The Festival was so successful, so beautifully managed, and popular that I have no doubt in my mind at all that we'll be repeating it again next year.  I'm already excited about it.

Poetry...Wednesday: David Musgrave

David Musgrave is a poet, novelist, critic, academic, publisher, and key literary light, supporting and promoting Australian poetry through his work as board member of Australian poetry Limited, through his teaching activities, and in many other ways, not least of which is his own poetry.  In addition to an award winning novel Glissando, David has published five books of poetry, including To Thalia (2004), On Reflection (2005), Watermark (2006), Phantom Limb (2010) and mot recently, Concrete Tuesday (2011).  He has also won many many awards, including this year's highly respected Newcastle Poetry Prize for his poem "Coastline", a tender,  moving piece that takes the reader on the most familiar kind of journey - a simple walk, yet one which is elevated to the mythological:

And so I kept on walking, finding in a word the future and the past in ever-repeating series bearing a kind of fruit

Into the present.  And as I walked, I came to resemble Achilles racing the tortoise, never
overcoming, in the end, a calculus of ever decreasing lengths.

If you want more of this poem, and I know you do, you can find it, along with the other shortlisted and commended entries in the book also titled "Coastlines" which is available from the Hunter Writers Centre.  This playful, linguistic richness can also be seen in his poem "A Glass of Water" which can be read and listened to here:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/audioitem/3194

The protean transformation of the couple is handled in a way that is both subtly humorous and moving as we slide between inside and outside, darkness and light, right-side up and upside-down.  

Poetry Monday: Philip Salom

The full program for the Newcastle Writers Festival is now up at:
http://www.newcastlewritersfestival.org.au/download-the-program/ and I'm busy enjoying some of the most vibrant poetry that Australia has to offer with a pile of new books that I've purchased and taken out of the library.  Next up is Philip Salom, author of, among many other things (some 12 poetry collections and 2 novels) The Keeper of Fish and Keeping Carter, both written with a heteronym (an imaginary character). However, the poems I have been reading come from A Cretive Life, which just happened to be sitting on my bookshelf, as yet unread.  How could I resist such serendipity?  I think I could easily write an essay on every poem in the book, including the powerfully intense sequence "Preservation: Things in Glass" which won the 2000 Newcastle Poetry Prize, but instead I'd like to give you a tiny excerpt from the title poem, which, as you might expect, is a reflection on both the notion of creativity, and perhaps "ac'cretive" as in accretion or a growth in size:

Well, it's all right for him
living in atonal jungle, each whisker
trembling like a tuning formk.
The crotchets are flying up
like waterbirds lifting in a rush
of music from the surface of a lake.

I suspect this may be a reference to the composer cited in the epigraph, whose typo 'How strange and exciting it is living the cretive life' gave rise to the title.  The last bit of poem is "Australia" - full of the sensations of the natural world, eucalypts, and the struggles of the artist, "neurotransmitters going/dry as paint left out in tins." Though there are books to read, I suspect I'll be dropping into A Cretive Life for some time to come, exploring its extreme depths, memory, loss, perception, and above all, the way we make meaning through the creative (and the cretive) process.

Newcastle Writers Festival turns the page on a new era

The first chapter of what organisers expect to be an annual success story will be written in April when more than 50 Australian writers participate in the inaugural Newcastle Writers Festival. Many topics and literary genres, including crime, climate change, horror, romance, poetry and history, will be explored by some of this country’s best-known writers in a diverse range of mostly free events.

The weekend event, from April 5 to 7, will be launched at 11am on Wednesday, February 13, at the Lock-Up Cultural Centre, 90 Hunter Street, Newcastle by volunteer festival organiser and Newcastle Herald journalist Rosemarie Milsom. Sixteen ticketed events will be announced, as will the internationally acclaimed keynote speaker.

Milsom said the diversity of local talent and the overwhelmingly positive response to the festival showed that Newcastle was more than ready to boost its literary profile. “I've attended writers’ festivals in Australia and overseas, and always wondered why Newcastle didn't have its own event given the depth of creativity in the city and beyond,” she said. “If you are an avid reader, keen to learn more about the writing process, or enjoy a lively exchange of ideas, there will be something for you in the festival program.”

The event brings together a diverse range of contemporary writers and established literary leaders. Award-winning author Robert Drewe, local crime writers Jaye Ford and Barry Maitland, media commentator and author Jane Caro and ABC radio presenter Richard Fidler are among those who will be participating.
The Newcastle Writers Festival is funded by Newcastle NOW and Newcastle City Council and supported by the University of Newcastle, the Newcastle Herald and ABC 1233. Milsom is working in partnership with the Hunter Writers Centre director, Karen Crofts.

Events will be held at a number of inner-city venues, including The Lock-Up Cultural Centre, Noah’s on the Beach and Newcastle City Hall.

Media launch details
When: 11am, Wednesday, February 13 at The Lock-Up Cultural Centre, 90 Hunter Street, Newcastle.
Who: Local best-selling authors Jaye Ford (crime) and Deborah Challinor (historical fiction), NWF organiser Rosemarie Milsom and Newcastle NOW manager Michael Neilson attending.

PS, and just in case you're reading right down to the bottom, I will be participating in a big way, facilitating a number of sessions and doing a few readings too. This is going to be a wonderful event--I  hope you'll be able to join us!