Mildura Writers' Festival
Sophie Cunningham
August 04
Three weeks ago I was a guest of the Mildura Writers' Festival. It's a very different writers festivals to most in Australia. The emphasis is on being small, focused, and provided a good experience for the writers involved in it, rather than working them as hard as possible to maximize audiences. This focus on the writer rather than the audience didn't seem to compromise the audience's experience, so it was a win-win situation. Most of us flew in on Thursday evening and then went to an art opening - a series of objects from a house in Bendigo. 
It was surreal looking at such commonplace domestic objects reconstituted - by fire, then again by being laid out in a gallery. Even more strangely, most of the objects had a sepia beauty. Only the Le Creuset cookware had kept its colour. I had a long chat to former Meanjin editor, Jenny Lee, who had gone up for a bit of a holiday, and with festival guest Morag Fraser. After the opening Peter Goldsworthy interviewed Christopher Koch. It was a terrific interview, but swine flu claimed me and I had to crawl back to my hotel room - not an ideal situation given that dinner that night was cooked by Stefano, one of the festival's founders. I did get some very nice sausages cooked by him at the literary lunch - Morag Fraser interviewing Alexis Wright - the next day. 
On the Friday night the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal Award was given to Professor Peter Steele - a gloriously humorous, erudite and generous public speaker and critic. I was lucky enough to be sitting next to Alexis for that dinner. She's a very special woman, as well as being an extraordinary writer.
On Saturday there was a full program out at Mildura's La Trobe campus. The festival makes a point of only having one event going at a time so you're not forced to choose between speakers. It works well - and means everyone is having the same experience, which is bonding. Highlights included readings from two Miles Franklin award winners, Christopher Koch - who read from Highways to a War - and Alexis Wright - who read from Carpentaria - as well as Virginia Trioli's interview with the strange and mecurial poet, Robert Gray. Michelle Cahill (who we'll be publishing in the December edition of Meanjin) also read some wonderful poems based on Hindu deities. I was relieved I wasn't asked to talk about sex, as I usually am. Instead I was on a panel with Robert and Michelle on Buddhism and writing. We got to get all nerdy and philosophical and weren't expected to behave like performing monkeys. The entire weekend was an excercise in Small is Beautiful with the philosophy of Slow Food thrown in.
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Comments
05 Aug 09 at 15:11
Nice post. Mind you, there are times when it is nice to be a monkey.
...05 Aug 09 at 16:21
Monkey is as monkey does.
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