Saturday Festival Reflections

Saturday was by far the busiest day that I had scheduled for the writer’s festival. 

There were many highlights across the day, so I narrowed it down to the two sessions that I found the most interesting.

Di Morrissey, not only was she enchanting her session, but incredibly supportive when I spoke to her afterwards with her advice. Di explained in her session that although it is difficult, you should write from the heart and not try to write to sound or be smart. As a writer who has published countless books, she never reads her works once it has been published because she may feel like she could have written something better or wants to change something. As a writer myself, to hear that someone as accomplished as Di Morrissey wants to change her finished works when she revisits them is very reassuring.

Another aspect of Di’s writing practices that I found to be very interesting is the way that she researches the places that she writes about, by going and staying in these places, meeting the town folk, exploring and hiking around the areas surrounding it. To me, this seems to be a fantastic way to begin writing a new novel. Sitting in a room surrounded by piles of research that have been pulled from the internet and out of books, now seems to be a mundane way to go about things. As Di put it ‘there are still places of extreme beauty’ in Australia just waiting to be found and explored.

One of the biggest sessions that I attended was with Tim Flannery as the speaker. Tim, who had replaced another author who was unwell, delivered an engaging and thought provoking discussion about climate change and the reality of it. A key moment was when an audience member suggested that the younger generations and the current technology were a part of the problem, an idea that Tim straight away gave insight too. He explained that the only reason the younger generations have this technology is because the older ones created them and people cannot be held responsible for something that they have grown up with. Education all generations about climate change and the impact that the human race has on the environment is one of the major keys in combatting climate change. If we can understand what is causing these changes and what can be done to minimise or even prevent these changes from occurring, the earth’s atmosphere and environment will stand a much better chance in the future. Therefore, no one nor any generation is to blame for these changes and blame will not change anything, whereas understanding and action will.

These two sessions formed very different discussions, which continued on throughout the weekend over social media and in person.