The round up of the last coupla days is kinda crazy. I'm running off to listen to the panel Vices, with Ronnie Scott in it. Just had a look at the glut of zines out there in the Zine fair. It was way too much to digest and take in. I ended up reading a zine called Paper Bag Girl written by the girl on the top bunk of the hostel where we are all staying. And this is very telling. It also explains why publishers, agents and anyone who is a content commissioner will only listen to you if they have heard of you before. Because there is way too much out there. Way too much. I can't stress that enough.
On another note, my fellow panelists from this morning's Expat Elite were awesome. John, an Irish doco maker turned out to be a very humble, intelligent person who advised Aussies not to leave for greener pastures because it's pretty sweet right here right now. Simon, an American writer based in Melbourne said the exact same thing. Having said that, Antonia and Kavita, the two other Aussies on my panel found their experiences overseas to have been really valuable, but it means they have been disconnected from a local network and are currently forming one. Antonia suffers from a problem we all wished we had, her novel is about to be published, she has an agent, has been to the faber and faber workshops and lived in Paris for 4 years but knows no-one in Sydney in the literary world.
Gee, I do wish I had THAT problem. But in all fairness, I experienced the same thing when I returned from Europe in 2002. Having said that, I didn't have a publishing deal at the time and I've been chasing the dream ever since.
So there you go, another day at TINA, another day at NYWF and I haven't even gotten into the panel Ben Law and Antonia were in about things you know you should have read by now.
Stay tuned.
0 comments:
Post a Comment