The Sydney Writers Festival was amazing!  We had gorgeous weather both days, which made it impossible to find a seat along the waterfront!  But with plenty to see and do, I didn’t want to be sitting down for long.

Volunteering was fun.  I was in the Writers’ Green Room area of one of the venues, so I basically signed authors and their people and members of the media in as they arrived and escorted them backstage.

While volunteering, I got to sit in on the panel discussion with Christos Tsiolkas, Kathryn Heyman and Alexis Wright on how authors engage in politics in their writing.  And I was so lucky because though it was sold out, I was able to sneak into the back of the Alice Walker documentary – Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth, which tells about her life from her birth in a poor community in Georgia, through the racism she experienced and finally her recognition as the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for The Colour Purple. Alice spoke briefly after the session and she is such a beautiful, beautiful soul.

The Festival hosts events all over Sydney, so I went to the Riverside Theatre in Parramatta on the Friday night to see Alexis Wright and Alice Walker again, who as you can tell from above, is one of my personal literary heroes! It was amazing to see the two of them speak about their writing and their activism and their connection to place.

Saturday I went to the Festival as an attendee, and attended a great lecture on trauma narratives by Adam Johnson, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Orphan Master’s Son. One interesting quote on the paradox of trauma… “Trauma destroys language, and yet needs the convention of language in order to be retold.”

Wandered around for a bit in the bookshop – signed Alice Walker book of poetry?  Yes please!!  Then I attended a panel discussion with Cornelia Funke, Kate Forsyth, Vikram Chandra, and Tony Birch on the magic of fairy tales. To finish off the afternoon, I went to hear Amy Tan, author of “The Joy Luck Club” talk about her relationship with China.

Finally, I caught a really interesting panel discussion with Tara Moss, Irvine Welsh (“Trainspotting”), and Damon Young about “bodies”, which was kind of a strange one, but sort of about the visceral details of writing graphic and physical content.

Afterwards I caught the ferry back to Parramatta, even though it was dark, because the Vivid festival is also on in Sydney and it was great to see all the lights and effects on the Harbour.  So all in all, a really great weekend!