Krissy Kneen

On Sunday I finished reading a fabulous book, Affection by Krissy Kneen. Couldn’t wait to get to work on Monday and send her an invitation to take part in the festival and have just had her response, “Hell yes!”  So am very happy. Affection won’t be published until August (Text) – so add it to your must-read list. Its subtitle describes it as a memoir of love, sex and intimacy and it is definitely R-rated. As I read my proof copy on a plane,  the man reading over my shoulder beside me had great trouble concentrating on Top Gear.

Krissy is well known for some excellent docos she wrote and directed for SBS and the ABC – one of which was about her unusual family which features again in Affection. Krissy’s writing is poetic and heartbreaking and I was moved by her painfully true recollections of childhood and, later, that too-wide gap between dream and reality that we all paper over with self-delusion.

I knew Krissy when I lived in Brisbane – she works at Avid Reader, one of Brisbane’s best independent bookshops. She is not the only writer on staff – Avid Reader is an incubator of talent. Everyone who works there is busy writing and being published – I’m surprised they find time to sell books. Watch out for Christopher Currie, another excellent Avid writer.

Rosemary
MWF Festival Director