Our panel, Expat Elite grew a bit yesterday from its original half dozen attendees at NYWF. It was very valuable to listen to the experience of John and Bryan, both of whom were foreign nationals living in Australia and working here. Their decision to come here to further their careers as writers was what really made a difference to their advancement. Kavita's own decision to work with English language media in Chile also made her career progression as a writer possible while working overseas. It really did give me food for thought. It made me realise that the time spent overseas could have been combined more effectively with my writing, even if it had just been morning pages every day of the thoughts and experiences collected over the time spent in Canada or Europe.
Antonia's other panel, following ours was I Should Have Read That By Now. It had Ben Law confessing to not having read any Australian writers, LinTan to only reading superman comics and Plato (what a combo). Christopher Curries admitted that he was only drawn to Jewish guy in Brooklyn novels and Kirsten Reed admitting to reading the summaries to classics. Lin Tan was actually surprised at the guilt Ben and Christopher felt when other people asked them if they had read something or not. Antonia's habit of reading the entire Booker Prize list every year was very admirable, considering I'm a binge reader who falls in love with one writer and finishes everything by that writer first before progressing onto the next.
The Vices panel hosted by Voiceworks as a convenor dug deep into the bad habits of writers like being on Facebook for far too long, or snorting Charlie to the point of being counterproductive. It was interesting that they all concurred on one thing: doing anything to excess cannot be done simultaneously with good writing. You have to exercise self-relfection and writer after the event, or all that will come out will be random words you don't even know how to read upside down.
I missed the Year 12 Formal hosted by the Crack Festival. I even had a date. My friend Rachel Howe had just dropped in out of the blue and asked a question at the Vices panel. She asked me to join her group of friends to go to the Formal in a posse. I accepted, only to pike later on because I had made the finals in the Spelling Bee held that evening. The View Factory, the venue for the NYWF Spelling Bee, locked us in too, so I had to stay til the end. I tripped out with the word tambouritsa. Don't ask.
The night ended at Is It Time To Go Home Yet? a reading held at the Royal Exchange. Will Kostakis delighted everyone with his anecdoates of publishing houses organising talks for him that he bunged up by being completely inappropriate. Mandy Beaumont read one of her debauchery poems to the delight of the audience. One reading went a wee bit long, which resulted in the open mic part of the night being cut short.
At the end of the reading, I headed out with fellow writers to Darby Street in search of some late night nourishment and ran into Rachel. She invited me to come along to a party that I later heard turned into an acid fest. Since I'm not into that sort of thing and piked for other reasons anyway, I didn't end up sharing poached eggs and fresh rocket with all the acidheads from the NYWF who were at the party.
Instead, I woke up this morning, trying to figure out where to go and missing most of the panels for the day. The Japan Media Arts Festival had moved venues and I didn't arrive in time to see it. I'm now off to the Lowlands bowling club to listen to Famous Bullshit stories. I'm really looking forward to listening to Simon McInerney read the short story he crafted during the festival. He has been one of my hostel roommates and after getting to know him a bit, I'm sure it's going to be quite a reading.
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