Sunday starts late and slow. Newcastle has put on glorious weather for the last day of the festival, but for me it’s just a little too bright to deal with at this stage. Thanks to Daylight Saving we all lost a precious hour of post-ball sleep somewhere in the early hours and my poor QLD brain just can’t cope.
I soldier on to the Press Room. It might seem a bit odd to blog about blogging, but each day of the festival starts with an hour of typing and eating lollies with other writers and photographers and it’s super nice. So that’s what I’m doing when I learn that the first event I was going to go to was actually moved to earlier and I’ve missed it. I’m disappointed, but also realise this might now be the first day I can go and eat proper breakfast. Which it turns out I can, so I do. One Penny Black provides me with delicious avo on toast and 45 minutes of extra recuperation time.
Alive, awake, alert and enthusiastic, I head to Mustard Chef. It’s a very simple concept - food bloggers make sandwiches while talking about their writing. I tweet that it’s ‘delightful’ and that seems to be the best adjective to describe it. Everyone makes and eats sandwiches from delicious ingredients donated by the Newcastle City Farmers Market and it feels really communal and nice.
I’m running out of time before my flight so I find my friends Alex, Tim and Beth and together we bus it up to the Zine Fair. This year it is at the Hunter Design School, which gives it a significantly less grimy feel than the car park of previous years. This has pros and cons. Pro - airconditioning, Con - less space, Pro - doesn’t smell like a car park, Con - doesn’t feel quite as zine-y? Is that a thing? Anyway I spend the last of my money on zines and prints and am very happy.
I head back to Staple Manor, post my blog, find some people to say goodbye to and then my suitcase and I start making the lonely journey to the taxi rank. I take a detour to fish and chips and am way too chill about the fact I’m running late for check in. I make it with 2 minutes to spare and I’m not even stressed, just filled with a glorious feeling of buzzing happiness.
For those who don’t know, I live in regional Queensland, so after a short flight, I have a 3 hour drive home. Luckily, my partner does the driving so I’m free to gaze out the window and reflect/ drool a little. After hour 2, I drift in and out of sleep and I dream that I’m still in Newcastle. I walk up and down Hunter Street, smiling at people that I met at the festival. It’s a nice dream, and when I wake up, we are nearly home.
In my last moments before bed, I scroll through the #NYWF14 tag on twitter. I catch up on what I’m missing, and stare at tweets longingly, as if I can will myself into the Dystopian Late Night readings just by sheer force of wanting. But of course, I can’t, and while I’m sad I had to leave early, I feel so connected to all these people.
My last thought before bed is that, for me at least, this was the best National Young Writers’ Festival yet and that I can’t wait to see what next year has in store.
Farewell NYWF you beautiful, sexy beast. I’ll miss you, but I’ll see you again very soon.
This is my final daily wrap up from the National Young Writers' Festival, you can read them here or at www.youngwritersfestival.org where you'll also find a tonne of other cool content.
If It’s Good Enough for 9 Year Olds is probably the most just, unbridled fun I’ve had in an event this festival. We use the story writing techniques Matt Roden employs with kids at Sydney Story Factory and write all sorts of hysterical stuff. There’s a lot of laughter and silliness and it feels really nice to write like kids. As a group, we rewrite The Odyssey, but in SPACE, with Sandra Bullock as Odysseus. I turn to the person next to me, and together we write an epic adventure involving a sentient orb of light that claims the LGBTIQ crew members from Sandra’s ship for seemingly homophobic reasons (don’t worry, there’s a happy ending). It’s not until the end that we actually introduce ourselves (Hi, Yen!).
After this a friend of mine who I haven’t seen in YEARS messages me…
“ARE YOU IN NEWCASTLE?”
“I am… are YOU?”
He’s here for Crack Theatre Festival, and we have lunch and massive catch ups because this is TiNA, and these are just the sorts of things that happen here. It’s wonderful, but I do miss the Funny Ladies panel I was meaning to attend. Whoops.
I sometimes think back to my first NYWF in 2011. I knew almost no one, and I bravely (I think) went to panels alone, worked out busses alone, stayed in a hostel alone and introduced myself to tonnes of people and met lots of lovelies who I now know and love. It’s not really like that any more. I have the security blanket of friends and familiar faces, I don’t always step out of the comfort zone or go to panels on a whim. So as an antidote to that, after lunch I set off on an alone time adventure. I catch the bus up town to the Hunter Design School for A Captive Audience where various authors discuss if they have a responsibility to use their writing for good, or just entertainment. I’m not sure they answer the question, but it is a great panel.
After this I have a disagreement with a bus timetable and decide to walk back to town. This takes 30 or so minutes, which is tooooooo long. But anyway, that’s what happens when you get stubborn with an inanimate object. After a frantic search for a last minute thing for my costume, which is unsuccessful, I head to My Favourite is Problematic. Based on the tumblr blog of almost the same name, writers read HILARIOUS pieces about their favourite celebrities/TV-shows/books/words and why they are problematic. I have a particularly soft spot for this topic and it made me really happy to see other people telling funny jokes about the terrible things we love.
Of course, after this it is time to head home to get ready for the NYWF Intergalactic Ball. I solve my costume problem and don my fresh to death Lumpy Space Princess outfit along with Ziggy Stardust and a Vulcan.
The Ball is the best I’ve been to. By far. For sure. I think it’s just a perfect combo of great venue (the back room at the Cambridge), stellar DJs, sweet theme and decent bar. I’ve never seen so many people dancing so consistently for so long at an NYWF ball - there is never a down moment on the dance floor. The circles of people move and shift, sometimes I’m dancing with friends, sometimes by myself, sometimes with strangers. And I know it’s because I’m drunk but I can’t help but see the metaphor in this. NYWF is a freeing, wonderful experience. I’m never as brave as I am when I’m here. Sometimes I’m surrounded by friends, moving from venue to venue in an obnoxiously loud group. Other times I’m travelling up Hunter street on the bus by myself, and still other times I’m introducing myself to new faces, getting to know new people and generally interacting with the world.
We dance, we sing, we laugh, we drink. There’s a really inclusive, fun atmosphere in the room. Everyone knows they can be silly here, everyone knows it’s ok to dance to Beyonce and have super sweaty hair and to scream when bad 90s pop comes on. It’s all ok. In fact, it’s all great.
I'll be doing a daily wrap up every day at the National Young Writers' Festival, you can read them here or at www.youngwritersfestival.org where you'll also find a tonne of other cool content.
Friday begins with a workshop called Writing Sex. Unsurprisingly, it’s about writing sex. I am super nervous about this because I struggle to talk about sex, let alone write it, but it’s actually an incredible experience. People are honest in their discussions and in the writing they share. Reading and writing all these stories makes me realise that sex as an interaction between two humans is a really interesting way to develop plot and character. My infinite thanks to Emma Marie Jones for a brilliant workshop.
We get lunch and incredible donuts from Dough Heads. My donut has pretzels on it because why not? After stuffing myself with pretzel donut I embark on my self-titled Feminist Friday Arvo. At Why Romance is Here to Stay I learn that I’m a massive snob and maybe I should read some sexy books with hunky man chests on the front cover. At Fucking while Feminist I learn that we still insist on rehashing exactly what feminism is, which to be honest is a bit disappointing given the title of the thing. I’d been really looking forward to a panel about feminist sexual politics or at least some good ol’ fashioned ‘fuck the patriarchy’ to make me feel better about being street harassed on the way there.
The highlight of my Feminist Friday Arvo is undoubtedly History Chicks. In the United Services Club (nicknamed the Gun Club), surrounded by mounted weapons and photos of (male) soldiers, the panellists talk to a packed room about the women of World War I and II. Niki Aken talks about writing my new favourite show (legit, not just saying), Anzac Girls. She and the other panellists, Bridget Lutherborrow and Davina Bell have all researched and written the untold stories of historical women and their discussion just makes me happy and keen to see what they and other writers will uncover about more women of our past. As I look around, the only woman on the wall, QEII looks down on me and smiles. She was a mechanic in the war, she knows what’s up.
Fem Fri Arv over, it’s time for trivia. I invite myself onto a now three year old team, the John Triviaoltas and frankly this was a *winning* decision. We won, is what I’m saying. The questions are great, the host, Dave Warneke is fantastic, and I manage to contribute answers beyond the singular Harry Potter question (Ireland won the World Cup but Bulgaria got the snitch). A super fun event all round.
Basically the entire festival then make the 30 minute trek back to the Royal Exchange for TV-Land and Late Night Readings. We hear from Lawrence Leung and Niki Aken about writing for TV, how to get your ideas out there, the underrated shows they are excited about and various anecdotes about giant props. It’s a good time. The late night readings are crime themed - it’s totally a good idea to end your night with graphic descriptions of true crimes, drug fuelled encounters with hit men and the story of a detective and his injured goose.
I’m running on far less sleep and far more carbs than I’m used to, but I’m having a wonderful time.
I'll be doing a daily wrap up every day at the National Young Writers' Festival, you can read them here or at www.youngwritersfestival.org where you'll also find a tonne of other cool content.
I’m woken at six by the sounds of children playing and a dog barking. But not like in cute, naw suburbia you’re alright kinda way, and more in a good god I went to bed at 1am and I will kill you kinda way. Miraculously, I manage to go back to sleep for ages and wake up bleary-eyed and stunned by the late hour with the rest of the household.
It’s a slow start, it’s the first day of the National Young Writers’ Festival, but events don’t actually kick off until 4, so we eat pancakes, talk, read. Fin draws little squares in preparation for Comic Jam, I read all of Alex’s NYWF blogs dating back three years and try not to freak out that I am officially taking on the daily blogger role this time around.
We catch a bus into town eventually and go to the Meet and Greet. We meet… we greet. There are lots of new names and faces and a few I know from previous years. Eventually there’s the suggestion that we should congregate at the Great Northern. This is a great idea except the staff of the Great Northern are not expecting 40 something writery types to suddenly congregate there. I’m pretty sure we literally cleared them out of cider. Possibly burgers also. There was an old drunk “DJing" in the corner, which was mostly just him pulling the volume up and down on various Fleetwood Mac tracks until the bartender made him stop. The Great Northern is not a venue this year but it’s still the place I associate with dancing, drinking, wearing a hippo suit and other important writers’ festival activities. It will always have a place in my heart.
We head up to the Cambridge Side Bar at 8 for Comic Jam, where artists draw all over butchers’ paper taped to the walls. It’s seriously cool, and their stuff looks amazing. While I’m waiting at the bar I meet a horse acupuncturist, which is not a sentence I thought I’d ever say but there you go. After that it’s the Launch Orgy, which is a thing I’ve been looking forward to all day. Six literary magazines (well five and a conglomerate) each have ten minutes to sell themselves. It’s kind of amazing - there’s soundcloud poetry, candles, a dildo, Big Brother, gameshows and a piñata. Probably the highlight for me was Grapple Magazine’s segment, which involved actual grappling in actual wrestling unitards to a glorious mashup.
The festival has officially kicked off and I’m so pleased to be here and so keen to do things. It’s going to be a wonderful, busy, exciting couple of days and I hope you enjoy these little snapshots as they go up. If you’re here, you can keep track of what people are saying by searching the #NYWF14 hashtag and you can join in the conversation there as well. Otherwise, see you at the bar.
I'll be doing a daily wrap up every day at the National Young Writers' Festival, you can read them here or at www.youngwritersfestival.org where you'll also find a tonne of other cool content.
