The Hustle

August 10 2009 — Sophie Cunningham

I'm not enough of a hypocrite to pretend that hanging out in Byron Bay for the four days of the Writers' Festival was an onerous task. It really is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, there were some great writers there, and the weather was glorious most days.

I travelled with Meanjin author Sian Prior. We arrived at sunset on Thursday afternoon and both leapt into the surf. We couldn't work out why we were the only ones to be seen, though later that night, at the opening night party we were told that we'd been swimming at shark o' clock. Hard to regret though -and indeed, we swum every evening we were there. (Don't try swimming with sharks at home, we can't be held legally responsible, etc etc). We were put up at a gorgeous little hotel called Cape Beach House. Our fellow guests were Mark Dapin, Abbas El Zein and Mireille Juchau. That evening we were all put in a bus and sent up to the Mechanics Institute in Bangalow. It's a beautiful building, with pressed metal ceilings and walls still in place. Geoffrey Robertson launched the festival with an impressive speech on human rights and literature - though as the man can speak for 1 1/2 hours without drawing breath, there was a sense that hunger was getting the better of the audience. At 9.30 pm we were released, whereupon a hundred or more people (including Mr Robertson) rushed at waiters and practically knocked each other over in the battle for the hors d'oeuvres. This was followed by a very intense hour of drinking. I had a brief but amusing conversation with the great Brian Cadd, who told me, somewhat ruefully, that he still played 100 gigs a year because he was hooked on applause. I suggested he could pay friends closer to home to applaud him at regular intervals. He said he'd considered that plan, but they charged too much. Sian and I ended up getting a lift back with journalist, and long time Byron resident, David Leser.

The next morning I made a fairly hungover Mark wear a Meanjin Tshirt for his sessions that day. There is a sense of some rebellion in those weary eyes, but luckily for me he was too tired to protest. To prepare myself for an afternoon of panels, and fully immerse myself in the atmosphere of Byron, I went off and paid a man a lot of money to cover me in hot stones. This is a very relaxing thing to do, believe it or not, but did render me a bit useless for the rest of the day. After lunch I interviewed Sian, on the fairly challenging subject of shyness, something she has written on for us for in the June edition. This might sound esoteric, but is particularly relevant at the moment, I think, as there is increasing pressure on writers (and, indeed, people in general) to perform to generate income. It was a demanding session for both of us - how to talk about the implications of shyness (is it culturally specific? how disabling is it etc?) without turning the panel into a therapy session. I think we managed and it certainly highlighted one of the things Meanjin wants to do - publish indepth essays on offbeat and unusual subjects.

After that I ran to another tent and talk about the literary journal today, with Julianne Schultz and Sally Warhaft. It was an interesting session and we discussed whether the 'demise' of newspapers was a death knell, or a bonus for magazines and journals. There was also a lively discussion regarding issues of independence, boards and editorial interference (with particular reference to Sally's experiences at The Monthly). Mungo MacCallum, Susan Wyndham and others, asked terrific questions from the floor.

That evening, after another sharky swim, we headed off to a small cocktail party held by my former boss, Allen & Unwin's Patrick Gallagher. Then we had dinner with Penguin publisher Ben Ball and other Penguinites, as well as Sally Warhaft. Life the universe and everything was discussed and much booze was drunk. I was, as usual, a girlie swat, and left when the night was still young. This was lucky as one Meanjin contributor, Craig McGregor (author of, among other books, Class in Australia), a Byron Bay local, called for a coffee at 7 the next morning and was bemused to find me still in bed. They do things differently there. He and I ended up having a very enjoyable chat at the more respectable hour of 10, then I had an interesting meeting with the head of the QLD Writers Centre, Kate Eltham. She's the curator of the Melbourne Writers' Festival digital day, which I plan to attend.

After that I headed off to town (the festival was a couple of ks out) to have lunch with Linda Jaivin who's an old friend I don't have the chance to see much of now I live in Melbourne. We had a bit of planning to do because Bettina Arndt was ill so we were one down on the Sex panel (as it shall henceforth be known). This meant I missed out on seeing Sian wrangle songwriters Brian Cadd, Don Walker and James Griffin, which was, by all accounts, a great session.

At 3.15 pm, in what was possibly one of the most traumatic experiences of my public life, I was expected to get up in front of around 600 people and talk about sex for an hour. It was difficult for a few reasons. One is that I wrote my book with sex in it, (Geography, about 6 years ago. Since then it's all been nuns and celibate members of the Bloomsbury set. There is alot to say about how to write a sex scene of course, but that wasn't what the audience wanted. They wanted Linda and I to be amusing on the subject of sex. Linda had no problem with that as she's extremely funny. I was, to quote Alan Close, cast as the straight woman and sat there, straight backed and prim, feeling competitive because Linda, and the chair Mandy Nolan, were getting all the laughs. So then I sold my soul to the devil, threw around words like cock and cunt, and generally carried on like a performing, ageing, sex kitten. Give me sessions on Shyness any day.

After that, I felt somewhat soiled. Sian, Mark and Abbas took me to that fabulous pub, The Rails to wind down with a few Stone and Wood - and a very interesting conversation on the history of the left in England, with particular reference to Trotsky, climate change and Mark Dapin. Abbas is a terrific guy and I'm looking forward to reading his latest book - but that night I went back to my hotel and began to read a proof of Mark's upcoming crime novel, King of the Cross, which I am liking very much. Like Geography, it has a lot of words starting with C in it.

On Sunday I had breakfast with an old friend who is a Green's councillor up in the area. There is lots to say about environmental politics and Byron, and about Sunday in general, but I'll save that for another post.