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ADELAIDE WRITERS’ WEEK, PART 2

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IMG_8385Festivals always afford writers the chance to talk shop, and Adelaide Writers’ Week was no different. There were so many wonderful conversations — both on and off the stage — about this industry that we’re all part of in one way or another.

On stage, the combination of English writers Margaret Drabble and Helen Dunmore resulted in one of the best sessions I’ve been to at any festival. Drabble and Dunmore covered a huge amount of ground but I’d like to pick up one particular strand of discussion. Both authors spoke about how difficult it is for new writers to get published these days. ‘It was easier for us,’ Dunmore said. ‘Now writers have to be so savvy. And I do think talent is missed.’ Drabble added, ‘Now novels never even get out of the slush pile.’

But if you do manage to get your first novel published, the difficulties are far from over. If your book doesn’t sell as well as the publisher expects, the second won’t be published. There are many authors out there now — prize-winning, critically-acclaimed authors — who can’t get their books published. As Malcolm Know once said, ‘Bad sales are the wall through which novelists can no longer ghost.’ These days an author can produce a novel a publisher considers to have literary worth and still not get published.

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ADELAIDE WRITERS’ WEEK, PART 1

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I have always considered Adelaide Writers’ Week to be the Mecca of Australian literary festivals, and last week I made the pilgrimage for the first time. It didn’t disappoint.

Set in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Gardens under marquees and shade sails, the outdoor setting lends the event a relaxed, convivial feel. Combined with perfect summer weather (I’m told previous years have seen temps in the forties but this year we were blessed with 32 degrees tops) and a stellar line-up of writers, I was in seventh heaven all week-long.

The sessions I found most invigorating were the panels (as opposed to those where an individual author was interviewed about their recent release). By their very nature the panels allowed for a broader discussion of writing, publishing and converging thematic concerns.

I particularly enjoyed Hannah Kent and Elizabeth Gilbert in conversation with Kalinda Ashton. This proved to be an interesting discussion about turning history into fiction. Gilbert talked about the four years of research for The Signature of All Things, saying, ‘You know 20 times more than you reveal.’ She kept boxes and boxes of index cards but said she then needed ‘to have the confidence to forget’. And I loved this analogy: ‘Because I’d prepared so much it was like riding a bike downhill.’

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Taking stories into schools

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Narrabundah
At Narabundah Early Learning Centre

I’ve just wrapped up three days packed with school visits for Megumi and the Bear. It has been exhausting but exhilarating. There’s nothing quite like reading to a roomful of kids so involved in the story their mouths are hanging open. Or hearing that your visit has left them so inspired they all started writing their own books. Or at the end of a session when the teacher says, ‘So who wants to be an author?’ and you’re met with a sea of hands.

Some highlights included a Kindy student asking me if I ‘sounded out my stories’. How gorgeous is that! And the Year 1 student who said, ‘I love your book. Can I have your phone number?’ Later she prompted, ‘Do you know your phone number? Because I really need to get it.’

But perhaps the most amusing moment occurred when a Year 3 student asked me when my first story was published. When I replied ‘1998’ the kids—all 100 of them—let out a collective ‘wooooah’. That was, like, back in the olden days! Later their teacher told me they had been planning to ask me what year I was born until she explained that would be rude. Lucky she headed them off. They may well have needed resuscitation.

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12 curly questions

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Kids’ Book Review recently interviewed me for their 12 Curly Questions series. I had a lot of fun, and revealed a few secrets along the way.

1. Tell us something hardly anyone knows about you.
When I was 14 and on tour with a children’s choir in Los Angeles, I was in a house fire. I was staying with a billet who left me and a fellow chorister for dead. We escaped past exploding doors. It was like something out of an action flick.

2. What is your nickname?
Cheebles was my Dad’s favourite when I was young (no clue why). These days Irms is the more appropriate but terribly boring nickname of choice.

3. What is your greatest fear?
Heights. You could offer me a million dollars to jump out of a plane and I wouldn’t do it. Seriously.

4. Describe your writing style in ten words. 
I’m all about stories with heart, rhythm, and lyrical sentences.

5. Tell us five positive words that describe you as a writer.
Creative, sloooow, determined, joyous, diligent-deadline-meeter (what? that’s not a word? you’re kidding me?)

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