Friday

Welcome! Welcome! To the Bendigo Writers Festival for 2015. Today kicked off with an amusing session hosted by Sue Gillett and Sarah Mayor Cox. The guest speakers roped into this event were Hazel Edwards, John Marsden, Bruce Whately, Alice Pung, Susan Green, Andrew Cranna, Adam Wallace and Narelle Stone. (Hopefully I spelt everyone’s names right). To entertain the huge audience consisting mostly of high school and primary school students, this talented bunch played a game called Behind the Blurb, in which the hosts asked questions of the authors, more often than not eliciting an entertaining response. What a great start to the festival. I didn't think I was going to laugh so much.

We are now Crossing Over to Sue Gillett, Alice Pung, and John Marsden. I have not read any of the books written by these authors although now that I know about them I will be keeping an eye out. Alice seemed very shy, often looking down at her hands as she spoke and I can empathise with that for I am very shy too. John Marsden on the other hand seemed quite content in the atmosphere.

GLBTI Lit for YAs is an odd looking title. Hazel Edwards talks about her novel f2m, a book about a transitioning female to male. She said, “I’ve always been interested in coping successfully with being different” (partial quote). The woman, who wrote books about hippos eating cake or doing belly dancing, has branched out and into the unknown world of a person going through transition.

I admire her for what seems to me to be a brave choice. i have not read the book but now find myself tempted to find out how someone might write about such a sensitive topic. I found this session to be a favourite of mine so far, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would and I’m not sure what was more enjoyable: the intriguing topic or the amazing person who wrote about it.

Tomorrow When the War Began first came to my attention as a movie, as it starred one of the people I recognised from Home and Away. I never watched the film as at the time it seemed a little too out of my comfort zone and I never read the books because they were never around in the bookshops when I was looking. Just a wrong place wrong time kind of thing. John Marsden is certainly an interesting person when he talks about his books and his concepts for writing. He seemed almost like a rebel to me in his way of thinking. Such as when he explained to the audience, “To break the rules of English language you must first know what they are, not so you can follow them but so you can break them” (partial quote). What an exciting concept. Make up your own words, phrases, and worlds. I’ve been doing that my whole life and to hear it being said that it is okay, was a great thing for me.

The Good Life offered food tasting before the session. And I fell for the yummy looking zebra cookies from The Good Loaf and the hazelnut and Belgian chocolate biscuits from Michel’s. I had no idea what zebra cookies even were before now. I also tasted the divine pork from McIvor Farm, home of the happy pigs as I was told. The food beforehand was great and the session following it was pretty good too. Three guys who left their normal lives to become farmers in Tasmania. Wow that sounds like an adventure. They have their own TV show too on SBS. The crowd was packed for this event, a lot of people crammed into one space. There was a lot of talk about seafood, which isn’t my thing, but their passion about it was clear and I was impressed none the less.

I have never been to a festival before and I was not disappointed on this first day. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming, the sessions I attended were brilliant and insightful. It has given me a lot to think about. I sincerely hope that tomorrow is just as good.