When I grow up…

I was slow with words as a child. My father and mother read me piles of bedtime stories (and bathtime stories and lunchtime stories and ‘I don’t have time for stories right now’ stories) but when it came to actually learning how to associate the squiggles on the page with speech, I had real trouble. I was one of the last in my class to pick up reading. I remember my mother telling me that she was beginning to get really worried – and then something just clicked. It was like I’d been blindly stumbling my way through a soupy word-fog and suddenly stepped out into the bright sunlight. Once I realised I could do it, I couldn’t get enough of it.

It occurs to me that, in a way, we’re conditioned from the beginning of our lives to consider employment and personal fulfilment in the same breath. ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ For the first twelve years of my life I answered that question by saying, ‘I want to be an artist’. (My brother James: ‘A Collingwood football player and train driver.’ My friend Eloise: ‘A pony. I also remember throwing money into a fountain and wishing to be Lady from Lady and the Tramp.’) I remember very specifically making a decision in Grade 6 that given the choice between artist or writer it was actually going to have to be the latter. Not because I felt some deep calling to the power of the written word, but because I thought I was more likely to be able to make money from writing (I know, right?) which would enable me to do it more often. It wasn’t the activities or materials themselves that hooked so far under my skin; it was the freedom they gave me in their own ways to venture past the restrictions of reality and into the endless possibilities of the imagination.

The ArtPlay events at the Melbourne Writers Festival this year offer parents a chance to give their younger children ways to engage with stories that go beyond just reading and writing in a colourful, enthusiastic atmosphere. In ‘Traditional Stories from Around the World’ kids can listen to stories from Indigenous, Sudanese and Chinese communities. Author and football enthusiast Michael Panckridge will be talking about sport and stories on August 30, while author and illustrator Briony Stewart (who was ‘either going to be an entomologist or the next Picasso’) will be encouraging kids to be brave on August 31.

For those budding young authors, Deborah Abela is hosting a Mystery Writing Workshop on September 3, and later in the afternoon, Gabrielle Wang has a bunch of stories she needs help to get finished in her Story Starter Workshop. And for those kids who just can’t get enough of the whole process, there’s The Book Factory: a three-hour start-to-finish interactive workshop that allows kids to get a taste of being writer, illustrator, reader and publisher of their very own book that they can take home at the end of the day.

See here for the full list of events at ArtPlay and here for all of MWF’s children and young adult programming for 2011.

Stories from every angle

So, another Melbourne Writers Festival winds to a close. It’s been that curious mixture of exhausting and energising, with heroes met and made.

Every festival organiser hopes for that magical combination of guests, which can elevate a decent hour’s chat into a wonderful interweaving of minds and ideas. My favourite panels saw this happen, particularly How Russia Changed My Life, featuring the charming Elif Batuman, intrepid memoirist Maria Tumarkin and the irrepressible historian Sheila Fitzpatrick; and From Woolf to Wolf, in which Sophie Cunningham, Monica Dux and Emily Maguire discussed Virginia Woolf, Naomi Wolf and Germaine Greer.

The festival hosted some international stars, including Joss Whedon and Norman Doidge, but often it’s the writers whose work I’m less familiar with whose stories really affect and delight me. On Sunday, at Magazine, Jake Adelstein, whose book Tokyo Vice tells of how he faced intimidation from the yakuza, read from a deleted chapter of his book – a comic tale of trailing an escaped monkey around Tokyo’s Nishi-Azabu area and being outdone in journalistic prowess by a nine-year-old boy. But only the day before, Adelstein movingly told the packed audience at Feddish about the real and dangerous cost of opposing the yakuza.

I loved the new venue, Feddish, where the Morning Fix sessions opened each festival day with a free smorgasbord of authors. But traditional venues continued to shine, including the Toff, which saw DBC Pierre settle back in a giant storytelling chair and artists including Clare Bowditch and Hannie Rayson re-enact Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.

The parties, of course, were very good. The official opening party set the tone for a fun ten days, with the speeches including a tale of festival love and lust; and the celebration of Overland‘s 200th issue was attended by well-wishers and friends galore. A 25th birthday can never go past without at least a couple of good bashes, and at MWF’s 25th, Readings Books’ Mark Rubbo dropped by, as did Les Murray.

As a participant in the festival this year, too, I experienced many surprising and wonderful moments. During the Schools Program, I spoke with fantastic authors Gabrielle Wang, Kate Forsyth and Alice Pung; and inspiring youth leaders Chris Varney and Adam Smith. It’s so amazing to see how enthusiastic young festival-goers are about reading, books and ideas, and I have no doubt that we’ll see some of them back as guests in the future. During Kill Your Darlings‘ residency at Magazine, it was pretty wild to hear Robyn Archer sing every musical reference in her book Detritus – her live fifteen-minute snippet reel needed to be seen to be believed.

Congratulations to the fantastic festival staff and volunteers for a magnificent 2010 festival. I wish you all a good week’s sleep.