Emerging Writers’ Festival – Saturday

I spent the entire weekend wrapped in the Melbourne Town Hall (and Fad Gallery) for the 2009 Emerging Writers’ Festival.

On Saturday, I wasn’t speaking so I was able to attend panels, get a sense of the space for Sunday, and hear cool people talk about interesting things.

First up was Seven Enviable Lines where the festival’s six ambassadors – Luke Devenish, Kathryn Heyman, Rachel Hills, David Milroy and Pooja Mittal – spoke about the seven pieces of advice they wished they’d been given starting out.  As a fiction writer, I found Luke Devenish and Kathryn Heyman most interesting.  Luke is a playwright & teacher who’s worked on both Neighbours and Home and Away.  He had a really strong sense of the craft of writing and was an incredibly open and personal speaker, both things that I look for and try to do when I’m presenting too.  Kathryn Heyman is a novellist, and again, had a strong sense of craft and willingness to share.  I knew I’d get to catch up with Luke at some point because I was on a panel with him, but I resolved to talk to Kathryn at some point, but sadly only got to shake her hand as she was leaving the bar on Sunday Evening.  She told me I had very soft hands.  I told her I was a writer and had never done a day of hard labour in my life.

I saw two From Here to There sessions – Hollow Fields with Madeleine Rosca, and The Librarians with Robyn Butler and Wayne Hope.  These sessions were designed to give the audience more of an in depth look at a particular piece of work.  There’s something consistently comforting in hearing the stories of how people create.  There are always enough trials – the length of time it took to get the Librarians off the ground; Madeleine having entire pages of her comic rejected and having to rework them – that it reminded me that this is part and parcel of the writer’s life.

The Great State Divide was an attempt to answer the question – is there a regional voice for each state in Australia.  As an outsider, I find the question of an ‘Australian Voice’ an incredibly interesting one, but I’m not sure this session managed to answer the question.  The speakers were diverse in both content and quality – the highlight being Sean Riley who told the incredibly personal story of him growing up in Tasmania and the very clear moment where he realised he wanted to be a writer.

Last on Saturday, before retreating to Fad Gallery in Chinatown, was The Pitch where a broad range of publishers – some established, some independent – let the audience in on what they were looking for.

The day let me put into words something that I’ve thought for a long time but never actually verbalised.  Seeing such a large group of writers, with such broad ranges of experience, I still found myself drawn to particular things – and it wasn’t necessarily what they said, but how they said it.  I’m interested in people who share something of themselves at conferences, who, afterwards, you feel like you know a little bit better.  If they manage to impart something useful, some glimmer of knowledge about how to proceed, great, but I’d much rather hear someone talk who could speak with conviction and passion about why they write, letting their personality shine through.

Sunday writeup coming soon…

A bit about me…

I’ve added an about page to the site.  Feels like I have to write a new bio for every single upcoming event 🙂  Hoh well, I had to do it anyway for one of the projects that I hope to announce sometime in the next few months…

And speaking of upcoming events, I’m going to be appearing at this year’s National Screenwriters’ Conference in Adelaide.  Session details are:

Writing – It’s More Than A Game

The differentiation between games and films is blurring rapidly. As game graphics and other technical innovations reach a highpoint, games are depending more and more on character, story and plot… and traditional screenwriters are becoming a valuable resource for the games industry.

The major global film market (15-30yo) is spending more time and money on games than cinema – and the trend isn’t slowing. So is there a place for you in game writing? Do you have to be a user to appreciate the form? How do your skills translate to this exciting field? And is the sky really the limit? Find out how you can tap into this exciting writing opportunity from three internationally respected games writers.

So, here we are…

I’ve tried to blog / maintain a website in the past, but always failed because I felt like there wasn’t much of interest happening. That’s changed now that I’ve gone freelance because there are some interesting projects on the horizon – most of which I can’t talk about just yet, but soon. I hope.

In the meantime, this site is still under construction, but you can visit some of the sections that were easier to put together than others:

Appearances

One of the reasons I wanted to start this site was to bring together a lot of the random stuff floating around the web that I’d been involved with. This page contains videos of my appearances on ABC2 and at Freeplay.

Conferences & Presentations

Over the years, I’ve done a bunch of conference presentations.  Here’s where you can find the details of the sessions and copies of the presentations.  Most of the new ones are in .mov format because I bought a mac and fell in love with Keynote.

Game Projects – Old ProjectsCurrent Projects

Here you can find details of what I’m working on now and what I’ve worked on in the past.  Sadly, the current project page is a bit quiet because everything’s early days.

Writing

This is where you can find samples of my personal writing.  It’s a little sparse just now because I’ve been focusing on a novel for the past few years.  That should change during 2009.