Monday thoughts

Melbourne in autumn makes my heart sing. I come to work past the Domain, the War Memorial barely visible through the mist and the trees in full autumnal glory. Then I get to my office which is much less romantic. Boxes of books & manuscripts make it look like we are packed up ready to go somewhere. No such luck.

Fabulous news yesterday about Christos Tsiolkas winning the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2009 for The Slap. Normally author photos are reserved, reflective and passive so I loved the photo of Christos in The Age – he was full of life, action and joy. It was a pleasure just to look at him enjoying his win. The Slap is a disturbing book in that it lays open all our prejudices and conditioning. Set in contemporary Melbourne it is a ‘must read’.  I gobbled it up over one weekend and I can highly recommend it for bookclubs – you’ll never stop arguing once you read The Slap. We are thrilled that Christos is coming to the festival after too long an absence.

Steve Grimwade and I decided that we should get new PR photos this year (mine was 6 years old) and we ended up looking like good cop/bad cop. Steve’s photos are all austere and severe whilst mine are, unsurprisingly, blowsy.  Always optimistic I’m sure that my photos are going to make me look gorgeous, 25 and model-slim. Oddly enough they don’t. Given the poor material she had to work with (and I’m talking about myself here, not Steve) Ponch Hawkes has done wonders.

Rosemary
Festival Director