MWF 2010 authors on… dinosaurs

I’ve given MWF guests a list of 15 random topics to respond to. The idea is to entertain and introduce you, the reader, to other sides of the MWF authors and their work, which may not be revealed on festival panels. The authors were allowed to respond in any way they liked, and were given no word limits. To learn more about the authors and what they’re doing at the festival, click their names through to their MWF bios.

Carmel Bird

STORY: A wisteria vine grows on the terrace outside my study window. Tiny blue wrens come there to swing on a particular
branch that balances on the cross-bar of another branch. I never succeed in getting there fast enough with the
camera. So one day recently I substituted a swinging plastic dinosaur for the wrens. As you do. He seemed to enjoy
the experience.

Carol Bacchi

When did ‘dinosaur’ become a pejorative term?

Tony Wilson

As the author of ‘Grannysaurus Rex’, I am officially part of the dinosaur industry. This sometimes causes problems at schools as child dinosaur enthusiasts tend to know a fair bit more about them than I do. I know the Raptors, because they are a Canadian basketball side, and I know stegosaurus, because who doesn’t, but I can get in real trouble when I mix up my brontos and brachios. And not all the ones with wings are Pterodactyls – make that mistake and a room full of Grade 5s will rip you limb from limb.

Kirsten Tranter

Having a four year old has refreshed my perspective on these creatures. I am still unsure about what exactly is the reason for their magical appeal to little boys. Henry at age three could distinguish between a whole catalogue of dinosaurs and is especially interested in the distinction between herbivores and carnivores. He obsessively watches and re-watches a movie shown on a loop at the Australian Museum in Sydney that reconstructs what supposedly happened one day at some lake in ancient Queensland, and ends with one big dinosaur eating a small dinosaur for lunch and roaring in a terrifying way. ‘They eat each other,’ he announced, with sombre and resigned amazement, the first time we saw it. Ankylosaurus is my favourite. I love that this one dinosaur is known as both Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus. We spend hours every month in the dinosaur rooms at the Museum and it’s the one part of it that never gets boring. They have crazy looking ones there with feathers and scales and claws all at once, like something out of Maurice Sendak. I love trying to get my head around the meaning of the time scale they make you confront: millions of years.

Feel free to share your own responses to the topic, or to the authors’ responses, in the comments.