Sitting In - Myf Warhurst in conversation with Carrie Brownstein

Sometimes I take my job as an usher for The Wheeler Centre for granted. Usually I'll make sure I've researched the feature guest, if it's someone I'm not already familiar with, but sometimes, like last night, I'll just read the event details and bio note beforehand. Yesterday I could have just logged in to Spotify or youtube and loaded some music or a clip to play in the background while I was working - I think my main project was writing some blog posts for a wedding dress designer - but I didn't. I checked the details of the event and in hindsight think I might have stopped when I read the opening line in the description:

"Rising to riot grrrl fame with pioneering 90s punk trio Sleater-Kinney..."

I was discovering new music yesterday. I was listening to The Cave Singers and didn't want to go anywhere near punk when I was in "twangy, roots folk." And thinking about the 90s makes me feel old, so while Myf tweeted, "Melbourne, who left the oven on?" I caught the train to Flinders St in my comfy Ecco lace up shoes and turned up to Melbourne Town Hall ready to marshall the many people who did know a lot about Carrie Brownstein.

My role was to prepare the queue, which means I walked up and down Swanston Street calling out to people, "please have your tickets ready to be scanned at the top of the stairs." I don't know how many times I said, "If you have phone tickets make sure it's big and bright and landscape, the barcode that is," or awkward variations of that, and you know what? I got smiles. I got laughs and as a really mixed crowd of people filed by I even got some thank yous.

I started getting very curious about this Carrie chick. I mean who/what is the common denominator in this mix? There were twenty-somethings helloing each other with hugs and little jumps of happy joy, but there were women, older birds like me, and a healthy number of blokes too.

Snaking around the front portico was loads of red lipstick, polka dots and Peter Pan collars along with plenty of androgynous fashion and arty ink. It was a bit like some sort of mashup of Melbourne Fashion Festival and Golden Plains, that would somehow have something for everyone.

When a tourist approached me to ask what we were putting on I gave a quick run down that included a spruik for the Wheeler Centre, but really I couldn't wait to get everyone inside and get to the back of the hall to have a listen myself. I was still thinking, "a punk rocker and giggling ladies - how does that work?" I mean Myf, well Myf's got one of the best laughs on radio and I nearly giggled like a fan when she came running up the stairs in heels I wouldn't trust myself in, so I could see how she'd draw a wide range of people, but I needed to find out more about this other woman on the stage.

Sometimes it's great to go to an event knowing nothing about the person or their book or their music and just listen, without preconceptions or specific things you want to be covered.

I was so lucky to be able to do that last night. I stood at the back of the full hall and listened to Carrie Brownstein talk and was quickly spellbound myself. She's composed, eloquent, gutsy and introverted. I don't know the details of her story, of the challenges she faced growing up and has apparently talked about in her recently published memoir, but what I did hear last night made me want to look into her a lot more.

So I know that Carrie Brownstein is a musician, writer and actor. You can see her in the award winning shows, 'Portlandia' and 'Transparent' and in the Golden Globe nominated film, 'Carol'. But because I was there last night I also know that she's someone who loves nature, who loves hiking and time to think as much as she loves teaming up with women who "have teeth".

"I like people that know they're going to be underestimated - and then claw their way right through you."

She started performing to put off going to bed or leaving a friend's house and belted out 'Life in the Fast Lane' before she had any idea what she was singing about. Now, at an age that is closer to mine than I'd realised, she still loves getting on stage and chasing emotions to their extreme, but also looks forward to the home times when Sunday mornings are spent reading The New York Times.

After last night's event I've got new music to listen to, new shows to watch and a new book to read. If, like me, you weren't already familiar with Carrie Brownstein then I reckon 'Modern Girl' (Live) is a pretty fine place to start. And if you're one of those with a ticket for this weeks' soldout Sleater-Kinney shows, then you're definitely up for some fun.

Sitting In - The Next Big Thing

Last night I was at the final 2015 'Next Big Thing' at The Wheeler Centre. After weeks, no months really, of not writing much and fighting it with prompts and recriminations, listening to these five writers seems to have been the restorative that I needed.

While outside a spring northerly picked up to almost 100 kmh, listeners, actors, family members and friends were crowded into the front room in The Moat. Each work, and writer, is very different, but the one that got me thinking and had me scribbling at 5.30 this morning was Sam van Zweeden, reading from her project, 'Eating With My Mouth Open'.

Exploring the relationship between food and memory, from both a personal and investigative approach, Sam shared some of her intelligent and honest stories. She's weaving research into her reflections and making a beautiful collection, one I hope that we'll all hear more from soon.

Today I've been thinking about my own food memories.

My grandma is jersey caramels and butterfly cakes - also Promite on Sao biscuits, but I think of the sweet stuff first - and strawberry Freddos are Sunday mornings sitting in the car wagging youth group. A chicken kiev means birthday dinner in high school when the idea of a curry or a casserole made me gag. So did eggs, silverside and cheese, although I was pretty fond of the old "Toast Hawaii" when mum was tired after a long day at work and a hot drive home in the Torana.

A very dear friend is the first time I had churros con chocolate, in Madrid, and it can never be that amazing again. Wrapping spring rolls in fresh herbs and lettuce sets me on a child's stool travelling on my own in Vietnam in the mid-90s and if I could have another hot poulet baguette on the coast in Wimereux with a glass of sparkling from the Loire I'd be a pretty happy woman.

Most of my food memories are good, until I say that and suddenly think of the cockroach halfway through the tajine in Marrakech, the violent nausea throughout India and the disappointment of my first pub meal in London. I remember an awful plate of squid mess sitting at a table on my own, reading, amongst massive extended families watching football and feasting on shared plates in Monopoli and a dreary selection of cold, pickled items in a dinner buffet in Copenhagen in winter.

What I crave and what I make can show me how I'm feeling - if it's hummus and Vitaweets because I can't be bothered cooking, that might be heading to bad. If it's nachos it's probably not good and if it's nothing, or savoury then sweet then savoury everything, that's definitely a bad sign.

My homemade food doesn't have to be gourmet or take a lot of effort to show me that I'm all right - a simple linguine with garlic, chilli, eggplant and rocket is good; instant miso with fresh ginger and enoki mushrooms? I'm good. Looking up recipes to find something new to make? I'm definitely in good form.

Last year I met my man in a cafe, his cafe, and we've fallen for each other making and sharing many meals. Chilli, hard core chilli in a good Larb Gai will always take me street-side in Thailand with him, with locals looking on and laughing as we sweated and fire-breathed and still spooned on more chilli oil, both of us crying joyful tears, sniffing and coughing, grabbing paper square after paper square to wipe our foreheads and noses, loving being on our first overseas holiday together, speaking our few Thai words and using lots of facial expressions and hand gestures to talk with the women and men who cooked for us, laughed at us and waved to us when we left.

We're going overseas again after Christmas, this time to Malaysia. We've watched Rick Stein in Georgetown and know there'll be plenty of roti and murtabak when we're there and here I am, excited about food, my holiday and, most importantly, about being back at my keyboard.

Last night Sam van Zweeden read stories that are far more insightful and poignant than these few paragraphs and they inspired me. Thanks to Sam I've got my hunger back, just in time: tonight I'm going out for a Vietnamese meal and tomorrow I'm going away for a few days. To write.


*  *  *
The Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship is generously supported by The Readings Foundation.

Kindness makes us good writers, good readers and good people

On Tuesday night I joined the Melbourne Literary May Salon, a monthly event I've been wanting to get to for, well, months. It was lovely to meet new people, including the hostess Anna Burkey, in an atmosphere that happily welcomes newbies and celebrates its writers' achievements.

I tagged along to Deakin Edge for the EWF opening night expecting welcomes, words from someone amazing who has well and truly emerged, an announcement or two and an after party. Between Justina Ashman winning the Monash Arts Undergraduate Prize for Creative Writing and Jane Harper being awarded the Victorian Premier's Unpublished Manuscript Award, we were treated to a beautiful few minutes from the elegant and eloquent Emily St. John Mandel.

Her talk covered place, home, work that has inspired her and how she has emerged from not knowing anyone in the industry, not having any creative writing (or other) formal qualifications, to find that the values that make a good writer are the same as those we admire in a good person. I'd love to listen to a recording of her time on stage - although it was perhaps softer than other parts of the event it was as inspiring, respectful and an absolute celebration of good writers, readers and people.

She shared a quote from A Correspondence with Eleanor Catton as a truism to think about, which mirrors my recent experience of support and generosity from Melbourne's literary community as I launch a new venture.

"Kindness is a core value for any artist, but most especially for a fiction writer: a self-centred person can’t see the world from another person’s point of view.”

Sitting In - shorts@fortyfive downstairs

Monday night. Flinders Lane, bluestone walls and large leadlight windows. Basements and juliette  balconies. It might be Autumn and getting cool at night but it's still spritely in the city. Not knowing our $20 ticket included a glass of wine, and enjoying being in town on a school night, we sat outside by the parked cars and had a carafe of Beaujoulais from Cumulus, and watched as people arrived for the second shorts@45downstairs.

Program theme: Conflict & Identity
Paddy O'Reilly, Gregory Day, Elliot Perlman and Maxine Beneba Clarke

I've read some Paddy O'Reilly stories (and don't mind admitting I was pretty keen for her to like my submission to the Overland Story Wine Prize last year) and though I hadn't seen her live before I couldn't miss her arriving. I'm not sure if it was her blonde hair or the gorgeous ankle boots, but I interrupted my partner to say there's Paddy O'Reilly because I am embarrassingly like a writer groupie.
Which reminds me, if anyone knows Tony Birch please let him know that I apologise for staring at him a couple of times in Readings last Thursday. He really should be able to shop without a stranger listening to him asking one of the staff to show him where to find a book.

Eliot Perlman has been a writer hero since 'Three Dollars' came out (1998), and though I didn't see him arrive I spotted him in his seat inside straight away.

Maxine Beneba Clarke I've had the pleasure of seeing a few times, and as guest editor for Overland Audio II she accepted a poem of mine. I'd also volunteered at her 'Coping Techniques' Writers Victoria  workshop on Sunday, so I clocked her (and her deep green feather earrings) when she turned up.

Our fourth reader, I'm ashamed to say, I hadn't read and wouldn't have recognised. In fact when we went inside he was sitting right behind me but it was only when he was introduced and approached the stage that I realised that. I may not have known much about him before Monday night but I'll not be forgetting him now.

Day read from 'The Madeness' (new material, yet to be published) which is a layered collection of stories set in contemporary South West Victoria. The notes I made during his reading make little sense - I was clearly impressed with how he grounded us in the setting as I've jotted a couple of lines that include bark, melaleucas, ti-tree, wind and moonah bushes. For some reason garfish appeared amongst this, perhaps because I loved the specificity of the male protagonist announcing that he's going garfish fishing.

The narrative wove through an afternoon where a father takes his daughter fishing and the wife/mother is home trying to write about Gunter Grass' second volume of his memoir. She'd found his writing 'too damn neat' and almost enjoyed the first volume of his memoir for finally showing the truth of him as a man, and not a very nice one. She stops frequently, focuses on key words and thinks about her association with them. I remember deciding in Year 10 that 'indelible' was my favourite word. I can't remember what I was reading when it appeared in my mind, but it's stayed with me ever since. Day's character arrives at 'insouciance' and ponders it. She remembers falling in love with it as a teenager and first associating it with Muriel Spark. It's such a simple trait yet reveals so much about character and Day's skill with subtlety like this kept impressing me.

A tension builds throughout the story as it gets late, and dark, and there's no sign of her husband and daughter, and we learn slowly of the daughter's intellectual disability and quickly feel the vulnerability. During a battle through the bushes to get to the fishing spot Day gives us the horrible sequence of thoughts that charge with fear - blame and anger, picturing worst-case scenarios and remembering different family members' responses to her daughter at birth. She's our eyes and insight and the downstairs room was filled with people barely breathing for the last few minutes of this story. You know it's powerful when everyone is still after the last word, needing an interval to breathe before their applause.

Continuing my groupie shamelessness, as Day returned to his seat I turned to say something, and not knowing quite what to say I said thank you, congratulations, that was so powerful. A gentleman, though he probably needed some breathing space himself didn't show it, he nodded and smiled at me and I turned back to the front.

As Mary Lou Jelbart (Director and Founder of fortyfive downstairs) told us we'd be taking a short break the word 'artless' appeared in my mind. My appreciation is 'artless'. I feel inept at handling my response to writing I admire, but hope that at the very least 'sincerity' is a word that is associated with me.

Sitting in - Melbourne voices

Last week I had a few where-am-I flashes. My front door confused me, because it wasn't my London front door. I saw a woman I vaguely knew, but I couldn't work out which city I knew her from. I went out for a coffee to the same cafe I've gone to nearly every morning for nearly 6 months, and was surprised when I got there that it wasn't the same cafe I'd gone to nearly every morning for over 12 months in London.

But yesterday well and truly anchored me.

My Monday morning writing group, led by Nicole Hayes, is the ideal way to start the week. We're a mixed bunch in terms of ages and backgrounds, each working on very different projects. Yesterday we read an extract of a novel set in Melbourne in the 70s and 80s, captured brilliantly through the POV of a teenage girl desperate to be on the stage. In a plea to her father to take her to the ballet, "he can't bloody well miss the Richmond vs Collingwood match to watch a bunch of poofters prancing on a stage," can he.

Brilliant. We know where we are and when.

Driving home I stopped at the lights by Dairy Bell. And remembered. Getting off the train at East Malvern to go and get an ice-cream after school / delay going home to Glen Waverley. Walking from my old apartment, down Belgrave Road, holding hands with my nephew when he was young. I kept driving along Malvern Road and saw the buildings of my old school up on the hill, turned down High St, passed Harold Holt where I've swum more kms over the last 30 years than I could count.

So I was in a pretty contemplative mood when I arrived at the Malvern library for the Tales Out Loud session with Sofie Laguna.

The small group of us were taken to a room upstairs that looks out over the oval I walk the dog on most mornings. We were offered coffee, tea and biccies, and a choice of listening to Sofie reading from her new (not yet published) book, or Q&A, or a bit of both. She started reading.

Sofie's trained as an actor, so it's wonderful to hear her read with Jimmy's 6 year-old energy, and an intensity that doesn't seem quite right from the start. The Eye of the Sheep wastes no time and in our session we're firmly placed with the Flick family in Altona and Laverton with Holdens and Passiona. We've got Dad retreating to Merle Haggard with a bottle of Cutty Sark, and Mum doing her Doris Day - a brilliant balance of comedy, tension and a hand placed on the heart getting ready to grip.

The official launch is on Thursday night at Readings (Hawthorn). I'd get there if you can.

To cap off a Monday of sitting in with fantastic Melbourne writers/ing, I started reading Nicole Hayes' first novel, The Whole Of My World. Another thought I'd had driving home was how come I haven't read this before? Every week Nicole is fresh and keen to listen to our latest work. She has that rare talent of giving valuable feedback and suggestions after just one read, and I haven't read her first book yet! She's already finished writing her second!

It's my first YA novel as an adult, and even though I like footy I wasn't sure that I was going to really enjoy it. I mean, I'm a long way from the target demographic. Shelley, with an e, is a Glenthorn Football Club fan who tracks more footy stats than the professionals. Starting at a new Catholic girls' school, she's doing her best to stick to her dad's saying: Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back to position.

After just a few pages I was thinking I need to buy it for one of my dearest friends (from old girls' school days), and I'll get Nicole to sign it, and I should turn the light out now, I need an early night, okay just one more chapter.

I read the pre-season (about a quarter of the book). I turned the light out and put an eye mask on. I thought about my day, the writers here, how there's so many opportunities to meet them, hear them and learn from them.

I knew I was in Melbourne.

Sitting In…Indigenous Places with Tony Birch

Last Wednesday night I sat in the front row of the 176 Little Lonsdale St performance space. Evaluation sheets had been placed on each seat, and I realised that I didn't have any expectations.

Truth: I only heard of Tony Birch a few months ago. Nicole Hayes, my writing tutor, brought 'Ghost River' to our group to study, and that set off a series that seems to happen organically once you've noticed something. 'Blood' is in a collection I was reading to research Paddy O'Reilly, who is judging a competition I'd like to enter. A friend in London tweeted about the Frank O'Connor shortlist and I landed on the longlist, and there's Tony. He's the writer in residence on The Wheeler Centre's Weather Stations project, which is enjoying enormous publicity. And there he is on the Writers Victoria program - Author talk. Indigenous Places.

I had no expectations, I just wanted to see and hear him speak.

Because there was a sort of lectern, a Dr. on a stage and we were seated in straight rows, I felt like I was at the start of a lecture, and subsequently that I should take notes. But quickly that compulsion moved from obligation, because I was fascinated, and (importantly) prompted to think. Several times I wandered off from what was being presented because it sparked so much for me to look into later.

At one point I wrote in my notebook, "Awkward eye contact with TB. I think he thinks I'm a stalker starer. Should have sat further back."

But I was in the front row, and I was writing ideas about how to explore issues in my writing; how to explore my place through not just my own, but others' experience of it. I caught myself eye-locked, mouth pursed and nodding thoughtfully, and thought I must look like a complete wanker, but really I felt awake in the way only intelligent, provocative, considered and interesting conversation creates. I felt as though I'd been taken as a plus one to a dinner party and fortuitously sat beside a compelling and sociable guest, and I didn't want to be interrupted.

The overwhelming message I left with was the value of telling stories. That everyone and everywhere (even Glen Waverley) has a story, and we have a responsibility to pass these stories on. Many of the things that connect us to place, and each other, may be small but they are significant. So my notebooks and collages of observations - a man reading a Feng Shui detective novel on the tube to Arsenal; the French girls playing Trivial Pursuit at my local, certain that the English word 'seal' was the correct answer to the question, "What kind of animals are the main characters in Watership Down?" - I felt a validation for continually noting these sorts of things, and my efforts to construct stories around them.

My notes from the session appear as a random set of unrelated topics - from Hiroshima to ACMI and digital storytelling - but they all have hours of meaning for me to rummage in.

At 6.30pm Tony had spoken of Tanderrum, a Wurundjeri practice where the host has to give their guest something of great value. In a sense, participants at Wednesday night's session should leave feeling they had got more than their ticket price's worth. At 9.00pm I sat on my tram, writing, and drew a box around: Tony Birch is an extremely generous host. I knew I'd wake up feeling as though I had more than "got my money's worth". And I missed my stop.

* * *
Sitting In is a series I've started of my experiences at writing, and potentially other, related events. Like my Time Out tracks and Book Comments, these are not meant to be reviews, but reflections.

I'm always interested in feedback or suggestions.

MELBOURNENOW - the crystal ball is broken

Earlier at NGV, as part of the Melbourne Now exhibition, Lisa Dempster chaired a panel consisting of Fiona Wood, Warren Bonnett and Connor O'Brien. We had festivals, writing, bookselling, publishing, designing, technology…basically experience and expertise on the chain of words. And our focus was the supply and demand of words from Melbourne.

There are many reasons why types (I don't want to start the genre, sub-genre classification debate) of writing are growing in popularity: science can thank the science journalists'  job losses for the improving quality of books tackling complicated and extraordinary events in the world; YA appeals to adults because it touches a time in our lives that typically was in flux as we developed our identities, and for some that is nostalgic, for others it contains regrets, but regardless it tends to be a time we love looking back at; digital developments are linking people in discussions and debates (with faces!) and showing how it really doesn't matter where you live, you can always participate in a literary event.

I've just returned to Melbourne and so enjoyed hearing two words over and over again during today's discussion: infrastructure and support.

The Wheeler Centre was at least part of the answer to most questions:
- What does it mean for Melbourne to be a City of Literature: engagement between readers and writers.
- And how dow we achieve that here? The Wheeler Centre, our range of festivals and our pool of passionate booksellers. Oh, and a talented writing community.

So what does the future look like?

As Warren reminded us, a year before the internet was 'launched', no-one predicted it's take-off. Initially IBM refrained from entering the PC market, forecasting a demand of approx. 10 per nation.

So what's the next thing in publishing? And how can you/I/we make sure we're a part of it?

The crystal ball might be broken, but right now Melbourne is a great place for readers, and writers, to be.

Our independent booksellers each have unique personalities and a place in their community, and just last week were consulted by the Melbourne City Council to talk about what council policies can do for them. So good infrastructure can get better.

The diverse calendar of literary events are all well-attended, and we're in a place that supports getting new ideas off the ground. Just look at the line-up in Connor's Digital Writers' Festival (and you'll notice The Wheeler Centre behind the scenes).

As is a trend globally, we have seen an explosion in book clubs and reading groups, but here we're also now seeing growth in volunteer programmes to help teach people to read. There's a lot of goodwill amongst readers and writers, and it's hard to imagine anything will slow that down.

Speaking for the YA market, but perhaps relevant across all Australian writing, Fiona has been asked 'what's in the water down there?' by people in the US. Our words are fresh and filled with an energy that makes them stand out.

We have some amazing publishers with international reputations that take chances locally but think globally. Innovation has deep roots here - Fiona worked on the 'Poems on Post-Its' project 25 years ago!

Who knows if we'll follow Krakow and have reserved seats on trams for readers, or if, like Paris, the literary supply chain will receive government subsidies. Who would have known there'd be a job as a bibliotherapist? A year ago the death knell for 'long form content' (ie. a book) started to ring, and then there's the success of 'The Luminaries' and 'Goldfinch'.

I don't know what's next or how it will look or who'll be leading it, but I am pretty confident that I'm in a good place to write, read, listen, learn, and have a lot of fun with the passionate people around me.

And finally, is there an iconic Melbourne text?

• Fiona has The Getting of Wisdom (Henry Handel Richardson) for her childhood, Helen Garner in her 20s, and now the many contemporary YA writers using Melbourne as their setting.
• Connor read Barracuda (Christos Tsiolkais) the day he moved to Melbourne, so it shed some light on society and places here.
• Warren recommends Melbourne (Sophie Cunningham) as well as Christos and Helen.

Perhaps you've got one to share?

Not quite Simon Hoggart's week (The Guardian)

If I run into someone today, or tomorrow, and they ask how my week's been, I'm going to have to warn them that they may not actually want me to respond. Because I won't be able to say, yeah not bad, or pretty good thanks. I won't even be able to stop at, you wouldn't believe how good my week's been. I'll have to give them this:

Tuesday:
Booked 3 night trip to meet my 18 year old nephew (and godson) in Belgium. He's part of an organised tour of battlefields with a group of his peers from Adelaide. It's the longest consecutive time I'll have spent with him since 2009, and I will try not to hold his hand and hug him any more than I can sneak in without him or his friends noticing.

Wednesday:
Went for a long lunchtime swim and came home to the best rejection letter I've ever had - Graham Connors (Number Eleven magazine) compared writing to a successful writer.
Watched the Swedish film, Play. It's 118 minutes of cinematography so beautiful you could cut and hang most shots as an exhibition. It's 118 minutes of creeping tension that reminded me of the 102 minutes of Martha Marcy May Marlene.

Don't remember dream details but they had an edge.

Thursday:
The text for this week's Reading To Write class was The Field Guide to Getting Lost, and the critique of my homework helped me to shape it into a story almost ready to submit.

Editing ideas meant I couldn't sleep properly.

Friday:
Walked through Wandsworth Common to the Earlsfield Cemetery for Hauntings: Ghost Stories at The Chapel and sat on heated pews for candlelit readings by Tania Hershman, Alex Preston, Adam Marek and Stella Duffy.

Creativity, and maybe a post-event drink, meant I didn't sleep well.

Saturday:
Joined 24 other writers for the Start Small: Think Big masterclass - Alexa Radcliffe-Hart has posted a great write-up of the weekend here - and (not in anyway detracting from the other sessions), I was introduced to and mesmerised by David Vann. When he began I feared it was going to be far too academic for my brain to absorb, but very quickly he worked incredible intelligence, knowledge and passion into a talk I could have sat listening to for another few hours. Whoever it was that suggested he do a TED talk, here here. Came home and ordered Legend of a Suicide.

Couldn't stop thinking, wrote "important ideas" down during the night, didn't sleep much.

Sunday:
7am coffee in bed, 8am coffee in local cafe writing and watching Clapham wake up with blue sky. Joined the group at Birkbeck College for more incredible hours with inspiring talents, and thanks to Carrie Kania and Deborah Levy, came home in the dark with an ambitious but do-able plan for the focus of my writing to finish up 2013, the year I 'came out'.

Couldn't sleep, excited about the plan.

Monday:
7am coffee with Evie Wyld. Well the last 70 pages of After The Fire, A Still Small Voice. Sat silent in my reading chair after finishing.

Wrote my list of targets for the week:
- 3 x short shorts to send to workshop partners for feedback
- 1 x short short to update following magazine editor's feedback
- 2 x longer short stories to do last couple of drafts and re-send to workshop partners for feedback
- Draft cover letter while I have the tips and notes from yesterday's session with Carrie Kania

Will I sleep? Don't really mind. Maybe I'll lie awake thinking about how lucky I am, thinking of how many people I've met and shared passion, laughs, coffee and beers with this week, and thanking the people who give their time to make all of these opportunities.

We all need a lighthouse of our own...

We already knew the setting was going to be stunning, but when you stop in a pub not more than a few miles from where you need to be to ask directions, and the barmaid and three regulars haven't heard of a lighthouse nearby, certainly not one that you can stay in, well it just becomes even more exciting.
When we found the entrance, drove around a couple of narrow hair pins and dropped down a steep steep hill, the silence in the car was utter awe.
Amanda welcomed us and showed us around the long building that has been respectfully restored to feel warm and lived in, but the bedrooms are quite stark. And why would you distract a room with too much decoration when you have an outlook across the Bristol Channel.

Many writers draw from it and have their own theories of its lure, but which ever way looking out over a body of water effects you, with moors and sheep and wild ponies on the hills behind you, well it's bound to spark something creative.
I find it unbearable to look at so much water and not slip in. Even knowing it's freezing beyond bearing, each white crest curls at me like a forefinger. I thank my childhood for making me a fish with legs, but last weekend I settled with the sunset from the rocky goat track, looking west towards Lynmouth.

Apparently I could ramble on and on about the weekend, so I'm restricting myself to two highlights:

Mealtimes
My vegan experiment stayed in London. In fact I treated myself to a Jamie Oliver bacon and egg sarnie before I caught my train. And over the weekend I enjoyed hearty homemade meals and puddings - chilli, chicken stew, vegetarian lasagne, apple pie, chocolate mousse with raspberry coulis...ok, you get the picture. Veganism is now reinstated, with many fond food memories. And a takeaway container in my freezer (thanks Amanda).
But apart from the food itself, the dining table was where we all came together, and really talked. Our group writes poetry, quirky flash fiction, short stories, humour, dark, women's lit, the (extra)ordinary...so it didn't take long to get into rich conversations, and establish links that spread from Wales, to London, to Cambridgeshire to...well Amanda's on her canal boat adventure now, last heard heading north.

Alison Moore masterclass
On Saturday afternoon, Alison Moore's smiling face appeared at the bottom of the stairs and we had wind-whipped introductions. Her taxi driver had asked if she was going to a hen's party - there's got to be a 'setting' story there.

The focus for our afternoon was setting and landscape in literature, which opened with reading and discussing extracts from a selection of books that all went on my to be re-read list, including Wuthering Heights, Waterland and The Woman in Black. And now elevated to the top of my must read list, 'If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things' (Jon McGregor) for his use of urban landscape as powerfully as the others use the wildness of moors and weather.

When Alison asked if we'd like her to read one of her short stories from 'The Pre-War House and other stories,' my enthusiasm nearly deafened my neighbours. Sorry about that guys. But I do love being read to.
Somehow the afternoon just ran seamlessly from listening to writing to discussing each other's writing to listening, afternoon tea, writing, discussing, and then Alison had to return to civilisation.

It's no wonder her events schedule is so extensive - I'm looking forward to the incredible line up at the 'Start Small Think Big' weekend workshop in November.


This was the first residential retreat for Amanda's Retreat West, and I have no doubt that it's the beginning of a very successful programme. Her plans for future stays in remarkable settings, with authors lined up to hold workshops around themes, it's a recipe for rewarding experiences all round. If you can get away from families and work for a few days, you can know that you'll be well looked after and there'll be lots of time and space for writing. And, if you're lucky, you'll make some great new writing friends.

Before I went to Exmoor last week I'd been struggling with a bit of a word rut. Now I'm back, writing, editing, smiling. And vegan. And now I really must head to the gym.

Soundtrack for the weekend? Of course I'm listening to The Waifs

Friday night at Foyles

The inaugural Spread the Word short story prize was celebrated with a panel, Prosecco and of course readings.

Bidisha and Tania Hershman (two of the three judges) were on the panel, chaired by Paul Sherreard, and they created a really friendly and informative space for the event.

It was interesting that one of the replies to the (impossible) question - what makes a great short story - was that the reader feels an effortlessness by the author. That the story has been told in exactly the right sequence and words - everything that's said is what needs to be said, no more no less - and there is no obvious over-working authorliness.
(That's not a direct quote of course - usually I do take some notes during these sessions, but I was so happy listening, like you are at a good dinner party, that I didn't want to disturb the vibe with my notebook).

So to me the judges' discussion was a similar success, as an honest and informal conversation between articulate champions of the short story form.

I particularly liked the Tania Hershman test of a good story: it has to have an impact; you need to feel like you've ben hit. Maybe not quite left black and blue, but you want to feel like you've gone through something and it stays with you. Again, for me the evening had the same outcome.

Bidisha read an extract of her short story, 'Dust', published in the anthology Too Asian, Not Asian Enough and Tania read 'Her Dirt' from her collection, my mother was an upright piano.

Not sure if there was a deliberate theme there ladies?  But the theme for the short story competition was 'RITUAL'.

Sue Lawther, Director of Spread the Word, arrived late to the event, with a very fine excuse. She'd been at the decision-making discussion selecting the winner of the inaugural Young Poet Laureate, to be announced by Carol Ann Duffy in the Houses of Parliament on National Poetry Day next week. And no, she didn't give anything away. But she arrived to present the winning prize to the very talented and exciting Clare Fisher.

Clare is working on a collection, 'The City in my Head' and the extract of her winning story that we heard was a powerful example of the judges' earlier comments about when it works: the voice is strong and confident from the opening word, and though we didn't get to hear all of it I'm sure that it has the Tania Hershman seal of success.

AND

We'll all be able to buy the anthology of the shortlisted stories when Spread The Word launches their publishing venture. ON SHELVES FOR CHRISTMAS - beautiful print and online editions. (nb. I have no investment in this venture, I just feel strongly about this organisation that does so much for new and emerging writers).

So I met a poet, a playwright, a short story award winner who it turns out I'd seen at several Word Factory events, and thought the sign of a great night was having to be ushered out so that the bookshop could actually close!

Thanks Spread the Word and Foyles for a great night, and congratulations to those who entered and were shortlisted in the competition. It's one for others to look out for next year - dates and details apparently to be released soon.

An Icelandic evening. In Chelsea.

I'd forgotten how aggressive lycra cyclists can be, so it was a relief to turn onto Fulham Road behind a woman in a red dress and high wedges. At Daunt Books I pulled up behind a woman with a crisp bob sitting very upright on a basket-front bike. I wasn't alone riding in a dress, but felt conspicuous wearing a helmet.

Beside the bike stands was a group of almost thirties smoking and comparing stories of their Trans-Siberian railway adventures.

Chelsea.

I'd spent the afternoon in my sunny courtyard (in a different seven letter suburb beginning with 'C') reading the last 100 pages of Burial Rites. Another strong contrast - last London summer heat and the last days of Agnes in northern Iceland's January dark.

The Icelandic evening was a discussion between debut author Hannah Kent and novelist, travel writer and academic, Sarah Moss. Both women went to Iceland at a young age, and it had left a powerful impression that clearly hasn't faded.

When she was 19, Sarah was awarded a scholarship to "contemplate natural beauty", and caught a ferry from Aberdeen to Iceland where she and a friend spent six weeks of summer travelling around. It was just a beginning for her, and always wanting to go back the opportunity came up for her and her family to spend 2009-10 in Reykjavik.


Hannah finished school knowing she wanted to be a writer, but unsure of what else she should pursue to supplement this tenuous career choice. She applied for a Rotary exchange, nominating Switzerland, Sweden and Iceland as her countries of choice.
At 17, she had never seen snow.

Though their Icelandic experiences were very different, there was obviously a challenging settling-in time. Sarah, with her husband and two sons, working in a city, depended on strangers to help with the simplest things, like buying a bus ticket. Hannah left Adelaide's 40 degree summer to arrive in a remote village in northern Iceland, trapped by snow and at the mercy of the weather. Where Sarah felt anonymous in a crowd, everyone knew who Hannah was, and the spectacle of being a stranger was disconcerting at first.

I haven't read Names for the Sea, but was interested that she used the form of a novel to get away from  the rigour of thorough truth to fact. She enjoyed the freedom of fiction.

Hannah's "subjective non-fiction" novel is the product of extensive research and the desire to reflect the story of the last executions in Iceland with respect for the people and place.

The synergy between these women's stories is the power of the landscape. Both take on a sort of reverence describing walks in the unending summer light, the bizarreness of volcanic gullies, the mountains, the isolation of an island where weather dictates what you can do each day.

It's as moving listening to the writers speak as it is to read the story of Agnes Magnusdottir.

The May release of Burial Rites was so highly anticipated in Melbourne when I was there in February, that I was desperate to get my hands on it when it was released in the UK. And in the spate of fabulous books I've read lately - I mean it had to follow Stoner - it easily gets 5 stars from me.

And Hannah's next book? Well I didn't get much time to talk to her about that as there was a long queue for signings, but it's set in Ireland, based on a story she's heard about superstition. I'd get ready for another evocative tale.

And if you're looking for a review of Burial Rites, rather than a response to it, Isabelle Costello has literally just posted a wonderful one here.

What a schedule, and what a lucky lady...

WARNING: This is not supposed to be a brag or name dropping, I just want to share my love for my live world of words.

Last month I talked about coming out of the writer closet, and the authors I'd heard (and bought) at great events.

And the hits just keep on coming.

At Clapham Books last week, Tom Canty read from his debut novel, Clapham Lights. The thing that really struck me was how well a young writer could stand in front of a crowded room and read his work aloud. He was funny, in the characters, and confident in what he was saying.

If I were his publisher I'd be getting Tom straight into a studio to record his novel. Apparently his girlfriend thinks his female voice is, well, pants I think he said. Maybe she could help him out there, but otherwise his delivery was brilliant.

Yesterday I went to the Spread The Word event at Woolfson and Tay. The afternoon was informal, for writers to write about 'things that happen in a bookshop'. I met a Shakespearian scholar, got talking to Paul Sherreard (who gave me a fantastic business idea - cheers) and had plot inspiration from the crazy (Shaun Levin's word, not mine) Devawn Wilkinson.

Most of us bought the Write Around the Bookshop map and used a prompt from that, along with the setting (surrounded by books, opposite a pub) to come up with a new piece of work.

After a break a selection of young writers who have been involved in various Spread the Word schemes read, either from anthologies and/or the exercises they'd done in the afternoon.

Again, I was so impressed with how well young writers can deliver their work. You'd think they've been doing it for years, and they're definitely ready for being on bigger stages.

A few open mic slots were taken with, let's just call them (myself included), less published and slightly more mature writers, who also read their output from the afternoon.

It was a great opportunity to write, mix, listen, and of course eat. The red velvet cake was a big hit, and next week I want to go back for the Savoury Asian Pulled Pork - sounds amazing.

And next Saturday I'm back at The Society Club for July's Word Factory event.

What luck!

I'd really love to hear what events others have been to, and how it's helped their writing. And hopefully anyone who hasn't been taking advantage of local events might think about getting along to one soon.

Couldn't get tickets for David Sedaris, but hey, I saw Kevin Barry!

Post-holiday-what-do-I-do-at-this-laptop-confusion is gone.

I walked out on it on Friday morning. I don't miss it, and I have the photos to remember the holiday.

Last night I went to the Word Factory's June event. It was a warm night, Pride night, and the event was over-subscribed. The doors were open, and all sorts passed by, lost in the lanes and closed streets of Soho, curious about the people in the doorway, the concentration in the room, about what exactly was going on in The Society Club.

NOT to detract from Keith Ridgway and Mary Costello, if you've never seen Kevin Barry interviewed or reading his work, do*.

He read us 'Ox Mountain Death Song', a short story in 17 parts, published in The New Yorker last year. The crowded room in turn laughed, looked pensive, nodded, wry smiled, laughed, and clapped long enough for Cathy Galvin to say, 'We can't really call encore, can we?'

I'm sure many of us would have liked to.

I'm back in the writing swing of things after my holiday. Though it is Sunday. And sort of sunny. And I've got all these souvenirs to sample, so...

Spoils from Sat night in Soho

Looks like Sunday

*There's plenty of clips to choose from, but 'The Apparitions' is a fine one to start with.