Day 2 at the Fest.
 |
| Alex Miller's Age Book of the Year |
Fresh (well perhaps not so fresh) from his win of Age Fiction Book of the Year Alex Miller started day two of on a high. Very entertaining, a real story teller and a great performer. Very amusing and engaging story about meeting the Queen, not bad for a Sth London son of a Scottish Labourer. More great stories including one about his son in law who taught him about language and a moving memory spurt about his separation from his parents as a lad. Such a strong character I was a bit nervous about meeting him but he was pleasant and I swapped words about Castlemaine where he now lives and my Dad was brought up.
From entertaining Australia to writing about Asia. One of my favorite writers and a great 'reading' performer Simon Winchester was part of a panel with Singapore born Kim Cheng Boey and China born Ouyang Yu told us of what it is about Asia that makes for such interesting writing and reading. Of course the Asia they focused on was the 'Orient' rather than the sub continent - wonder if that's an Australian thing? Winchester told a story about driving in the Gobi Desert and puncturing the sump. Thankfully his iPhone connected him to Google and then to a hotel 300 + miles away. he explained his predicament. They told him to put his hazard lights on, get back in the car and go to sleep and help would arrive in five hours. Sure enough five hours later a truck with a crane arrived to put the car on plus a Toyota land cruiser for him to continue his journey.
 |
| Kate Burridge |
A long break then and I returned home to do the laundry before heading back in for a fascinating 4pm session about the wonder of words and how we use or misuse them. The Age's crossword creator David Astle, a writer of word books for children Ursula Dubosarsky and the wondrous Kate Burridge took us into the wonderful world of word-nerdism. Afterwards I had a chat with Kate which ended in some laughs and she confiding to me she doesn't like the new format of 'Can We Help', nice dedication in the book she signed for me.
Two of the sessions were relocated to the BMW Edge but weren't full so not sure why that happened but no drama. Caught a glimpse of Malcolm Fraser swapping venues, looking very old and frail and thin. Not seeing the extra long queues I'm used to seeing at the signings but I haven't been to the biggies such as Val McDermid and it could be a different story (!) next weekend.
I have really enjoyed the sessions this weekend and am looking forward to three days next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment