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More writers than you can poke a metaphor at
I'm back - did you miss me? Did you notice I was gone?
For anyone who's wondering, I spent the past four days visiting my dad in Rosebank and attending the Byron Bay Writers' Festival. Which means I haven't had internet access for four days, so if I've missed anything important or interesting, let me know.
We left Thursday night, and actually ended up sitting next to Judith Lucy on the flight up to Ballina, which was kind of awesome. (For those not in the know, she's an Australian comedian who's done pretty much everything, from stand-up to television to film to radio to books.)
Friday was supposed to be the first day of the festival, but it was absolutely pouring rain, so we got to the site only to find out that it had been cancelled. Which sucked, but on the up side, we went into Byron instead and saw The Dark Knight and bought some books at a second hand bookstore, so the day wasn't a complete wash.
Saturday, luckily, was actually sunny; it was also sold out, on top of giving away tickets to those who had tickets for Friday, so it was fairly crowded. We saw some good panels, though; "Popular Culture: But Is It Art?" which had some interesting (and quite vehement) debate between the panelists, and "Are They Laughing Yet: The Pressure To Be Funny," which had some great people - Judith Lucy, Bruce Dawe (famous for his character satire of Australian politicians), Kam Raslan (a Malaysian satirist, who I hadn't heard of before, but who I quite liked), Danny Katz (who mostly writes children's books, as well as a few newspaper columns), and Chris Taylor (from The Chaser and CNNNN, both political satire) - and was really funny. Also, the first panel we saw had Damien Leith, who apparently won Australian Idol a couple of years ago (I didn't hold it against him).
Saturday night, we went with dad and Alex to the cultural centre to see another comedy event, with Judith Lucy, Kam Raslan, Danny Katz, and Chris Taylor, as well as Julian Morrow (also from The Chaser and CNNNN), Andrew Knight (who I know from SeaChange, and who I think mostly does drama now), and Tim Ferguson (formerly, and famously, from the Doug Anthony All Stars, starring Tim Ferguson, Paul McDermott ... and the other guy). At the end, they were asked about their favourite comedians or current shows, and their answers were pretty much what you'd expect - Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, 30 Rock, The Office (UK) and Ricky Gervais, Flight of the Conchords, Arrested Development. Oh, and Brendan Nelson and Alexander Downer, without whom there might be no political comedy in Australia at all.
For H_E people on my flist: on Sunday we saw Miriam Margolyes, occasionally known as Professor Sprout, Hufflepuff HoH. I didn't bring a camera (or my phone), so we didn't get a picture, but it was cool nonetheless. She talked about how Prince Charles once performed a sketch for her - he was very good, apparently (and the sketch was written by Barry Humphries, which couldn't have hurt). There was also the requisite panel where someone completely misinterprets the title; the panel was "Falling Into Place: How Writers Find Their Genre," which the chair apparently thought meant how writers became writers, and what they would be doing otherwise. Luckily, Max Barry, who spoke first, immediately launched into an actual discussion about genre, which was very interesting; along with Nury Vittachi, I really want to check out some of his work.
We had some time to kill after the festival, so we went out for sushi (yum!) and completed our impromptu mission of having a drink at every bar in Byron (yay!). We then drove up to Queensland to fly back to Melbourne from Coolangatta, since we couldn't get a direct flight from Ballina, which means that we were in three different states yesterday. Which isn't exactly notable, but it's, like, half the number of states we've got, so whatever.
Anyway. That was my weekend - how was yours? What did I miss? Catch me up!
For anyone who's wondering, I spent the past four days visiting my dad in Rosebank and attending the Byron Bay Writers' Festival. Which means I haven't had internet access for four days, so if I've missed anything important or interesting, let me know.
We left Thursday night, and actually ended up sitting next to Judith Lucy on the flight up to Ballina, which was kind of awesome. (For those not in the know, she's an Australian comedian who's done pretty much everything, from stand-up to television to film to radio to books.)
Friday was supposed to be the first day of the festival, but it was absolutely pouring rain, so we got to the site only to find out that it had been cancelled. Which sucked, but on the up side, we went into Byron instead and saw The Dark Knight and bought some books at a second hand bookstore, so the day wasn't a complete wash.
Saturday, luckily, was actually sunny; it was also sold out, on top of giving away tickets to those who had tickets for Friday, so it was fairly crowded. We saw some good panels, though; "Popular Culture: But Is It Art?" which had some interesting (and quite vehement) debate between the panelists, and "Are They Laughing Yet: The Pressure To Be Funny," which had some great people - Judith Lucy, Bruce Dawe (famous for his character satire of Australian politicians), Kam Raslan (a Malaysian satirist, who I hadn't heard of before, but who I quite liked), Danny Katz (who mostly writes children's books, as well as a few newspaper columns), and Chris Taylor (from The Chaser and CNNNN, both political satire) - and was really funny. Also, the first panel we saw had Damien Leith, who apparently won Australian Idol a couple of years ago (I didn't hold it against him).
Saturday night, we went with dad and Alex to the cultural centre to see another comedy event, with Judith Lucy, Kam Raslan, Danny Katz, and Chris Taylor, as well as Julian Morrow (also from The Chaser and CNNNN), Andrew Knight (who I know from SeaChange, and who I think mostly does drama now), and Tim Ferguson (formerly, and famously, from the Doug Anthony All Stars, starring Tim Ferguson, Paul McDermott ... and the other guy). At the end, they were asked about their favourite comedians or current shows, and their answers were pretty much what you'd expect - Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, 30 Rock, The Office (UK) and Ricky Gervais, Flight of the Conchords, Arrested Development. Oh, and Brendan Nelson and Alexander Downer, without whom there might be no political comedy in Australia at all.
For H_E people on my flist: on Sunday we saw Miriam Margolyes, occasionally known as Professor Sprout, Hufflepuff HoH. I didn't bring a camera (or my phone), so we didn't get a picture, but it was cool nonetheless. She talked about how Prince Charles once performed a sketch for her - he was very good, apparently (and the sketch was written by Barry Humphries, which couldn't have hurt). There was also the requisite panel where someone completely misinterprets the title; the panel was "Falling Into Place: How Writers Find Their Genre," which the chair apparently thought meant how writers became writers, and what they would be doing otherwise. Luckily, Max Barry, who spoke first, immediately launched into an actual discussion about genre, which was very interesting; along with Nury Vittachi, I really want to check out some of his work.
We had some time to kill after the festival, so we went out for sushi (yum!) and completed our impromptu mission of having a drink at every bar in Byron (yay!). We then drove up to Queensland to fly back to Melbourne from Coolangatta, since we couldn't get a direct flight from Ballina, which means that we were in three different states yesterday. Which isn't exactly notable, but it's, like, half the number of states we've got, so whatever.
Anyway. That was my weekend - how was yours? What did I miss? Catch me up!
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Martin Harrison always knew what his would be (he's a poet); Jack Hibberd writes in just about every genre, so he didn't have to choose at all; and Max Barry, apparently, wrote at least half a dozen novels before he had any idea what genre he was writing in. Now, I think, he can at least identify a book's genre after the fact, but his books are still scattered between general fiction, young adult, and science fiction, and he said he tends to view genre more as a marketing or organisational tool than as something organic or particularly germane to the writing process (particularly since his books tend to straddle genre rather than falling neatly into any one in particular).
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