Category Archives: Guest posts
Censor and Sensibility
I pulled the program guide out of my bag and checked the time. I had arrived on schedule, just not at the right place. I had forgotten that while Federation Dodecahedron is the headquarters of the Writers Fest, not all the events are held there. I shook my cuff back and looked at my watch. It looked remarkably like a hairy wrist. That’s right, I’m a child of the eighties, and as such, my timepiece is found on my emailing pocket clock that doubles as a phone. I had ten minutes to make it up to the Wheeler Centre.
Fortunately for me there was a bank of share bikes ready for rental. I paid the fee and unclipped the bike from its holder. I adjusted the seat to ‘lanky’ and swung my leg over the frame and started to pedal. A police officer curtly stepped in front of my velocipede, halting my momentum with a bulky frame of his own. I assumed he was going to ask about my helmet. Instead his gloved hands began to fondle my curly hair, which he referred to as nature’s helmet. Once satisfied with the density of my ringlets, the officer slapped an approval sticker on to the side of my head and ushered me into the traffic.
I slotted my bike into another bank of bicycle holders and jogged the rest of the way to the Wheeler Centre. I had a whole minute to spare and dedicated it to not passing out from my recent exertion. I was sitting in on a forum called Cheek: The Getting and Losing Of Jobs Online. I was interested in the first half of the title. The latter part was something I already have down pat.
While the audience waited for the guest speakers, we were treated to a quartet of people singing the news stories of the day. I was amazed at how bad news doesn’t sound as harsh when sung in a falsetto. If I ever experience an ugly break up, I think a song might be a lot nicer than the SMS my last girlfriend deemed fit to send me – twice.
The singers lapped up the applause and placed themselves in the front row of the room. The other members of the audience indulged in nervous small talk while we waited for the session to begin. The conversations were interrupted by a loud beeping noise and someone called out asking for all mobile emailing pocket clock phones to be switched off. The beeping continued. Every head in the crowd swiveled to see the source of the incessant beeping. It wasn’t a phone, but a truck reversing up to the stage. A volunteer asked if we could step back a bit to allow Catherine Deveny’s ego to make it through.
After several sweaty minutes, a group of volunteers managed to push her ego on stage and prop it up with some wooden buttresses. Everyone settled back down to enjoy the talk and the speaker rattled off the credentials of the panel. There was one guy whose only reason for being there was he had actually found an online job. This did not bode well for the rest of us hopeful job seekers.
Jonathan Green talked about his experiences moving from a quite papery medium like The Age to digital media like Crikey and The Drum. Although the conversation continued to be hijacked by Deveny, who insisted her now famous tweets weren’t the reason she was fired, rather, it was the fact that she was a woman who fought the good fight against the dead old white men that run mainstream newspapers.
Towards the end of the talk the audience was invited to ask questions. I wanted to ask if it might be a good idea to put a breathalyser on mobile emailing pocket clock camera phones that won’t allow us to activate our twitter accounts if we’re over the .05 alcohol limit at any awards nights. I decided it was best not to, after all, I don’t want the dead old white men to fire me from my job as well.
A Week of Writing with Pictures: Bernard Caleo’s MWF diary
Bernard Caleo has been making – writing, drawing and publishing – comics since 1990. He collaborates on comics with friends, creates solo books and – since 1997 – has compiled, edited and published the giant Australian romance comics anthology Tango via his own imprint, Cardigan Comics. He also runs comic classes and workshops. You can visit his website at www.cardigancomics.com. Bernard shared his MWF itinerary with MWFblog.
So, okay, I’m pretty much always reading comics or making comics or talking about comics or thinking about comics (that is, when I’m not making theatre for museums), but this week is HUGE!
On Wednesday and Thursday I will be sharing MWF stages with other fine makers of comics, as part of the Schools Program.
From 12.30 to 1.15pm, Pat Grant and I will be discussing the topic of ‘Seeing the World Differently‘ in an illustrated talk. Pat is one of the most dedicated cartoonists I know, both in the time he spends at the drawing board but also in his thinking about comics: comics theory, I guess. It’s no surprise that he is doing postgraduate study through Macquarie University and that a long comic book (‘graphic novel’, if you’re a fan of the term) will be the outcome, with a thesis examining the process of making the book submitted alongside. Go, Pat!
We’ll be talking about the way that the mode of drawing things in a comic – the simplifications involved – can amplify meaning. Also the way that the sequencing of pictures (we call them ‘panels’) in a comic builds a world in a different way to a single complex picture.
We’ll be talking about the difference between drawing:
And comics:
(two versions of me by me)
These are interesting questions for cartoonists but also for people who read comics: just how do these things WORK? So, a bit of comics theory for kids…
On Thursday 2 September at 11:15am, I will be discussing The Alternative Hamlet with Nicki Greenberg. Nicki’s graphic adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (2006, Allen and Unwin) was a knockout, and her version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (published this year) – as the cover says, ‘staged on the page’ – will literally knock you out if it is hurled at you. 420 pages! Massive! And she has created incredible worlds on those pages, both of the action of the play and of the inky actors who play the parts. It is the connection between these two worlds which I particularly look forward to discussing with her.
From the great speech. Words by William Shakespeare, pictures/comics adaptation by Nicki Greenberg © 2010
I’m striking out on my own with an MWF presentation called Picture This!‘ at ArtPlay from 12.30 to 1.15pm. In this one I’ll be show-and-telling about the different forms of comics – comic strip, comic book, graphic novel. These formalities out of the way, I’m hoping that we’ll be able to make a large comic strip together, with me drawing up the front on a big piece of paper. My experience with these things is that they usually end up being about death or poo, sometimes both, so I’m looking forward to that.
Later that very night it’s off to the launch of Going Down Swinging #30. This is of interest because GDS has been incorporating comics into its lit lineup for many a year, and good on them for that, and this issue features the ‘graphic novella’ (I like the humility of that term, whereas ‘graphic novel’ seems a bit jumped-up and fancy-pants, don’t you think?), Itinerant Fighting Monk by Michael Camilleri. Now yes, Michael is a very close friend, but that does not influence me in the slightest when I say that this story/comic/illustrated fictional blasphemous autobiographical tale is the greatest statement on fatherhood and subjectivity that I have ever seen.
On the Saturday afternoon for MWF, I will be launching a long comic book by Gregory Mackay, Francis Bear, which is also being published in French this year by, well, by a French comics publisher, The Hootchie Kootchie. Fear not however, my monolingual friends: the version I am launching is in English. And pictures. The venue is Feddish, in Federation Square, launch time is 2.30pm, with me doing a bit of a hoo-hah around 3pm. Come and pick up this book, ‘an intriguing study of an inventive drunken bear’s pathway to oblivion’. Gregory has been drawing the misadventures of Francis for many a year, and doing some fine work with comic book rhythms along the way – I can’t wait to see Francis tackle oblivion. It will no doubt be hilarious.
From there I will go to work (I’m a projectionist) on Saturday night – and, you know, relax.
What a week: comics, comics and comics – pretty darn fine.
Ever the troublemaker
I presented my pass to the awkward looking volunteer manning the door of the BMW Edge Theatre. He seemed puzzled that I should want to go inside to watch the next event and asked me if I was really sure if I wanted to. I told him I did. He shrugged, scanned my pass, and I walked through the door and into a wave of kid stink.
It was a year since I had been around so many children and I forgot just how much they smell. In small packs they’re fine, but en masse, they reek, offending nostrils with a sour playdough odour. I decided to move to the front of the theatre in the hope I could avoid the worst of it. I found a gap about mid-way through the first row. It’s an odd sensation sitting in on the Schools’ Program. I’m not used to being around that many people who still have hope and joy in their lives.
The teachers continued feeding their children into each row of the theatre, until they reached the first row. They seemed hesitant to let their young wards sit next to me. I was glad I had shaved my moustache off a few weeks prior to the festival, as it would only amplify the creepiness of the one adult male sitting next to a group of kids. After all, there are only ever three responses to a moustache:
Your mum – “Shave it”
Your girlfriend – “Shave it”
Everyone else – “You look like a sex offender”
One teacher conceded and ushered some kids in next to me. A small Indian boy sat down, sizing me up with the blunt perspective of the young. He asked if I was a teacher and I told him I wasn’t. Then he asked what I did for a living. I explained that I was a writer. He sat on this thought for a moment before asking what type of books I wrote. I informed him that I haven’t written any books, only articles, columns, and comedy. Without missing a beat he said “Oh… so you’re not a real writer. Just an unemployable guy with a keyboard”
My grandmother’s words falling out of the mouth of an 8-year-old.
I did the only mature thing I could think of and crossed my eyes while poking my tongue out at him. My vision uncrossed to a teacher with crossed arms and a crosser face. She sent me to the ‘sin bin’, a space up the back of the theatre where I found myself grouped with a chubby kid who habitually crammed his fingers into his ears, taking far too much joy from licking the tangy wax off his finger tips. He proffered a stubby finger tipped with his head excretion that I politely declined. He seemed pleased that I said no and contentedly sucked at his own goo. I can’t believe after all these years I’m still sitting at the back of the classroom, ever the troublemaker.
On the stage, Andy Griffiths and Ursula Dubosarsky delighted their audience by discussing the international language of comedy – farts. All the kids were terribly excited at the prospect of reading more books about bottom burps. Perhaps this was a sign. Maybe I could find work writing about bums and the noises they make. While I sat there thinking of a title for my first big book about bums, I failed to notice the event had finished and the school children had mostly left. The Indian kid walked past me grinning. “Say hi to Centrelink for me”
I wanted to exact revenge against his smug remark, instead I smiled, knowing that in a few years the horror of puberty would be punishment enough.
Whedon out the weak
I was standing in a crowd of people making mist from the chilled air with each breath taken. To stave off the cold I invaded the personal space of a giant woman in a long leather coat, nuzzling against her back as nonchalantly as I could. Her head whipped around, revealing a long neckbeard and a man’s face that shunned sunlight in favour of the glow of a computer screen.
The neckbeard told me his name was Obsidian Blackdarknightblack and introduced me to his afterlife partner Amanda. Amanda, wearing slightly less make up than her beau, asked if I was here to see Joss, placing both hands over her heart as she spoke the name Joss. I told her that I was supposed to be here to write about Joss. This time she placed her hands over her heart when I said Joss’ name. Amanda told me that she too was writing about Joss, and in fact, wrote about him in her dream journal on a daily basis. Obsidian explained they were there to sacrifice Amanda’ to Joss, so that she could bear his precious seed. I didn’t think goths could get pregnant and told them it was my theory that goths are asexual. You only ever see fat or skinny goths, so obviously when a skinny goth gets fat enough, the chunky goth splits itself into two skinny goths, and so the circle of goth continues. Obsidian said that if he wasn’t sure his make up would get smudged, he would kick the living shit out of me, and the pair spun around to face the front of the queue once more.
At most MWF events you’ll find people nodding intently at the speaker, politely bearing the appropriate amount of teeth to smile at a T.S. Elliot quote, and the occasional champagne fizz of laughter rippling through the audience. What you won’t normally see is a few hundred high-pitched Beatle-mania squeals as a writer walks on stage, and that was just from the fanboys in the crowd, the fangirls were too busy updating their twitter feeds and clawing at their multicoloured hair when Joss was introduced by Steve Grimwade and his ulcer Stephanie.
Joss Whedon walked out on stage in the robes of a standard nerd, faded jeans, a jumper, and sneakers. Someone screamed Joss and I witnessed hundreds of people place both hands over their hearts simultaneously. Joss silenced his church with a gesture. He paused for a moment before saying “I have faith…” He was cut off by a number of guys who stood up screaming “Where is she? Is she wearing the red leather pants? Please say she’s wearing the red leather pants“
The main conversation of the evening seemed to revolve around a number of Joss’ television shows being cancelled suddenly. This caused howls of rage to erupt from the audience, and people started passing around effigies of Fox executives and lighting torches. I instantly regretted wearing a suit and tie and began mentally noting where my nearest exit was in case they demanded some form of human sacrifice.
A group of the MWF volunteers began setting up microphones within the crowd, and the audience was invited to ask questions of their lord and saviour. Of those questions, five were asking if Joss would impregnate them, there were actually six asked, but I didn’t count the 40-year-old man. There was one girl who asked what every fan had been dying to know “So is there anything about your shows that, like, you like, like?” I erupted in laughter and a security guard told me I would have to leave. I told him that I didn’t think my laughter was that disruptive. He pointed out it was for my own safety and pointed to a thousand people staring at me like I was a skid mark on a hotel towel.
Surly to rise
The scraping metallic whistle signaled the approach of a train that was already apologising for any inconvenience that it’s tardiness had caused. It’s been a long time since I have caught a peak hour train, I must have put on some weight in the last six months, as this one seemed a lot tighter than I recalled. Hemmed in on all sides by commuters, I did my best to ignore the restrictive journey, but I couldn’t ignore the chirpy female voice emanating from the speakers in the carriage “Myki can now be used on all Metropolitan trains!” Yes, well, my key opens the front door of my house but it didn’t cost me $850 million.
I was supposed to meet my fellow bloggers for a caffeine baptism to start the festival off with a jitter, but no one was at the café. I bumped into a man that resembled an extremely Irish Yul Brynner. He introduced himself as Chris Flynn and asked if I’d like to see his Torpedo. I recalled the time I had dialled a number I found on a public toilet wall, despite it’s claim, there was definitely no good time had, not by me at any rate. I politely declined his offer. Chris shrugged and told me he was off for his Morning Fix. My bowels gave off a Pavlovian gurgle and I followed him into a large café called Feddish.
The café was warm to the point of stifling and the air seemed thick with pungent chemical fumes. I sat down next to a well-stubbled man and asked if there was a gas leak in the room. He gestured towards a group of pallid people seated around a table. The air above them rippled with last night’s alcohol. Two were propping their heads up with their hands while the third was grimly clutching the table like the steering wheel of an out of control big rig. I watched as the waitress placed three croissants in front of them. The table-driving lady reached into her purse, producing a large pack of Berocca that she emptied into the pastry. She caught my eye while crunching down on her Beroccroissant and apologetically mumbled “Text Publishing party last night”.
Through the wobbling booze air I listened to four authors whom all seemed worlds apart. Despite hailing from different countries, with vastly different upbringings, they all serendipitously read passages from their work that focused on recapturing and reinventing childhood memories. Their words gripped the crowd, bringing forth laughter, smiles, even tears. Although that could have been the fumes coming from table 9.
On Women and story: Carmel Bird
Carmel Bird released two books in 2010, the novel Child of the Twilight and an edited collection of personal essays on the meaning of ‘home’ called Home Truth. Three of her novels have been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Here, she writes about women and story.
On my dressing table I have a tiny statue of the black madonna from Guadalupe in Spain. She is dressed in a robe of atmosphere-sensitive chips that change colour with the weather. When it is hot she is bright turquoise, when it is cold she moves through pale yucky pink to icy-blue white. She came from the display pictured. See the little black faces?
I was in Guadalupe doing research for my novel Child of the Twilight, some of which is set in Spain, and much of which is concerned with the theft of a religious statue. In Writing Women, I will discuss the question of the black images of the Virgin Mary – as well as other things.
At Dog’s Tales, I will be telling a story. It won’t be a story about black madonnas, so just so you know, the story of the lady of Guadalupe goes like this:
In 1326 a cowherd, in response to seeing a vision of the Virgin, dug up a casket which contained a black statue of Mary. The statue had been buried six centuries earlier by knights fleeing from the Saracens. It became an object of veneration, and is believed to have been responsible for many miracles. When Columbus set out to discover the New World, he began his journey from the steps of the cathedral at Guadalupe, and placed his ships under the patronage of the Black Virgin of Guadalupe.
A great story, I think.
10 Facts About Books You Won’t Read In A Book About Books
In the lead up to the Writers Festival, I think it’s time to pop on our learning bonnets and discover 10 incredible actual factual facts about books
Gone and done.
A few last things: Thomas Buergenthal signing a young lawyer’s copy of his book with a salutation to her future career as a human rights lawyer; Hitomi Kanehara and the ten sleepers in her ear; a room full of people celebrating sex with Krissy Kneen, Linda Jaivin and Nikki Gemmell; MJ Hyland and that jibbering microphone; another MJ and Thriller at the Toff; the exhortation to contemplate the future of the book; a missed rendezvous between Heidi Julavits, Eli Horowitz and Lord of the Fries; revisiting childhood wonder at maps with Reif Larsen; the poetry of domesticity with Chris Wallace-Crabbe; Jeff Sparrow and how we conceptualise killing; fiery rumpus on the parallel importation of books; chewy duck canapés; bourbon and bitters; one lost pair of shoes; two shaking arms and a heart full in all its chambers.
Estelle Tang, 3000 BOOKS
Festival Blogger
Paradise Found
I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to break character for my final post. No absurd whimsical short story, for today is the last day of the 2009 Melbourne Writers Festival. It should be a sad occasion, but there are still so many events to get through, that one doesn’t have the time to mourn the passing of yet another amazing festival.
One of the most notable elements of the MWF has nothing to do with the events and everything to do with the people attending them. They are all so different. Cast your eyes across the rows of an MWF event and you’ll see silver foxes and their balding gents, scruffy authors conversing with suited sharks, heads weighed down with warm woollen hats and minds inflated with new ideas, Mohawks and faux-hawks in deep talks, hands slapping thighs in mirth – when they’re not brushing tears of empathy aside, tiny hands proudly clutching at their first book with no pictures. All of them gathered for a shared purpose – the written word.
Despite this being a festival of the word, not one can come close to describing the mutual elation that erupts from the audience when a writer shares an idea that changes their thinking. I’ve witnessed these moments on an almost hourly basis in my time here. There is something wonderful about being seated with hundreds of other minds all glutting themselves on concepts and themes. Knowing that anyone seated in that theatre could be an instant friend. I can say that I have made many; I hope you can make the same boast.
The myriads of individuals that come together, to not only create this festival, but also to be a part of it is immensely comforting. It dispels all the nonsense talk of the death of books. For me, books are incredibly important, but it’s ultimately the ideas within them that are the key. I’ll confess to stroking the pages against my face and delighting in the familiar fetish of paper on skin. Though in the end, books are the method of obtaining the content. The book is just a means of engaging with concepts, and more importantly, with people.
The Melbourne Writers Festival is much like the covers on all of those books being verbally dissected each day. Take a solitary dot of ink and it means nothing. But when you combine it with thousands of similar specks, a larger image is realised by the millions of points pooling together.
It’s one book you can judge by its cover. You’ve just got to look a little deeper.
by Simon Keck
Festival Blogger
Good times and hot toddies
Three's a litcrowd.
I took a break after Textual Fantasies to have a drink at Madame Brussels with a little crowd of MWF guests and supporters. Above, Angela Meyer, Fiona Wright, poet and publisher at Giramondo Press and Josephine Rowe. Good times and hot toddies!
