Review of the Bendigo Writers Festival

Photo credit: http://www.weekendnotes.com/bendigo-writers-festival/

The Bendigo Writers Festival was my first writing festival and I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much that I really can’t pinpoint what may have been my favourite session, though ‘Happy Ending’, ‘Stone by Stone’ and ‘Looking and Learning’ were definitely some of the highlights. All three were really interesting and made me think about writing in a new way.

The ‘Text Marks the Spot’ day was extremely informative and I think Sue Gillett and Sarah Mayor Cox did a fantastic job organising the day for students, who from what I’ve seen, are an exceedingly tough crowd to cater to and keep entertained. The opening session's game show they devised was innovative and fun, and the rest of the sessions were awesome and gave me so much insight into writing and the authors themselves.

The rest of the weekend had a slightly different feel to it, only really in the sense that it felt more relaxed and less like I was in a lecture, but was still hectic. I think I found ‘Text Marks the Spot’ a little more enjoyable because there weren’t people writing off the younger generations because of stereotypes that exist, which happened more times than I would like to admit. This obviously is a reflection of the person expressing their views and not the organisers of the event, or the people being asked the question, who all answered impeccably, but it did take something away from those sessions.

The only real critique I have of the festival is the timing and the placement of sessions. Some of the ones that focused on the young adult genre tended to be in the smaller venues and sometimes got quite crowded. The timing of the sessions was also a bit hard because there was only fifteen minutes between them. Whilst this seems like it’s enough, if there was a long line for the session the start was sometimes missed. This time frame also meant that if you wanted to attend sessions all day without a break, there wasn’t enough time to have something to eat or go to the toilet.  

Overall though, the 2016 BWF was really enjoyable. I will definitely be looking to attend next year if I can, and may venture out further into other writing festivals throughout Victoria.

Curiosity Killed the Cat

The saying goes ‘curiosity killed the cat,’ and as a child I remember being told this whenever my parents thought I was getting ‘too’ curious about something they thought might be dangerous or was poking my nose into something I shouldn't know about. Though it never stopped me wanting to learn about things, there was a small part of me that started to think that curiosity was a little dangerous and might get me into trouble. Recently though, I heard a different version of this quote. It went, ‘curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back,’ and I prefer this one. It is much more encouraging towards curiosity, and because of a connection between curiosity and creativity, it encourages creativity as well.

Photo credit: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140605152640-184607318-curiosity-killed-the-cat-that-s-okay

While at the Bendigo Writers Festival, I went to a session ‘Looking and Learning’ where Nick Brodie, Gisela Kaplan and Chris McAuliffe discussed the importance of curiosity and its connection with learning, writing and creativity. Kaplan in particular talked about her curiosity as a child and how it caused her to devour books on every topic under the sun. This led to an interest in birds and eventually to her writing a book about birds. Kaplan said she had a lot of trouble getting published because it was on a topic that publishers didn’t think there was a market for. She went further with this and said that she thinks sometimes someone needs to write about certain topics for them to become interesting and to find a market because it inspires curiosity in more people.

When she said this, I really thought this shows how important curiosity is. It causes people to be innovative and pioneering. It causes people to look at the world in a new way and to create things that then causes other people to look at the world in a new way. It takes something that starts out as being quite personal and then gives it a wider audience, which in turn inspires more creativity. as Brodie said at one point, creativity inspires more creativity.

Creativity, to me, is the root of almost everything because it is what has led to the creation of almost everything that humans rely on. Be it more scientific, such as medicine, mechanical, such as cars, or even more traditional creative things such as music and art, the core of all of these things has been creativity. The core of creativity in turn is curiosity, as curiosity is the initial spark that starts everything off, and it should be encouraged not cautioned against.

Happily Ever After

As a genre, young adult (YA) is often viewed as being somehow a ‘lesser’ genre than adult fiction. As such, it has certain rules and expectations that adult fiction doesn’t have. One of these is that a YA novel should always have a Happily Ever After (HEA) ending. This is probably due to some misguided belief about what teenagers/young adult readers are able to cope with.

In the session Happy Ending at the Bendigo Writers Festival, young adult authors Gabrielle Tozer and Ellie Marney discussed this expectation and their own thoughts on the importance of a HEA ending. Both Tozer and Marney had the opinion that the ending of a YA novel should depend on the story rather than fitting in with what is expected. They both said that if the ending doesn’t match the story, it's going to be jarring and readers will be able to tell that this wasn't the proper ending.

Photo credit:http://www.happyindulgencebooks.com/2015/11/11/double-reviews-the-intern-faking-it-by-gabrielle-tozer/

Tozer, whose most recent book Faking It focuses on Josie Browning dealing with the pressures of her new job, likes to decide her ending based on what the characters ‘earn’, or basically on what they have gone through in the novel. If they have faced struggles she feels like they need to have a kind of reward, thus a HEA. Marney, author of the YA crime series Every which focuses on the crime solving adventures of Rachel Watts and James Mycroft, also believed this, and added that she thinks that HEA can sometimes be off putting for teens because it can come across as overly optimistic. Marney thinks that teenagers in particular don’t need HEA endings because they are going through a time of great change and can be full of angst and worry. However, she does believe they need some hope throughout and at the end of the novel to offset any darkness in the book or in real life. Due to this Marney appeared to argue that if a HEA doesn’t suit the book, the ending should at least include a little bit of hope for the characters.

Photo credit:https://rowreads.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/game-review-life-is-strange-episode-4.html

Personally, I love reading HEA, but I think that’s also mostly because its what I’ve come to expect from books. I read a lot of series, and even if one book ends on a cliffhanger, there is a part of me that always expects the series to end happily in some way shape or form, which I suppose then takes away from the cliffhanger.

I think a great example of this dichotomy between a HEA ending being wanted versus what is good for the story is The Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa. This is a quartet series that was originally meant to be a trilogy. At the end of The Iron Knight (the last book in the series) there is an extra little interview in which Kagawa admits that she is a fan of the Ultimate Noble Sacrifice ending and (sorry for any spoilers) this was the end of the character arc she had in mind for the protagonist Meghan. However, Kagawa’s editor is a fan of the HEA and convinced Kagawa to write the extra book, from the perspective of the male protagonist Ash, to finish on a happier note for some of the characters. I loved this ending, but plot wise I think it would have been perhaps a stronger ending if Kagawa had just left it at The Iron Queen.

Photo credit: http://strangechemistrybooks.com/2012/07/19/introducing-the-iron-fey-series/

Basically, I think what Tozer and Marney said about the ending needing to match the story is the smart thing to do. Although this may change and it may end up having a HEA ending, this type of ending should never be forced just because it is a YA novel and that is what is expected.

Personalities in the World

Before the Bendigo Writers Festival (BWF) properly started I was able to attend the school day 'Text Marks the Spot'. A very interesting sessions that day was one hosted by Sue Gillet where she interviewed/talked with Gabrielle Tozer and Jaclyn Moriarty. During this session they discussed social media and identities. I found this really enjoyable, but I couldn’t help but notice a difference between Tozer and Moriarty. Put simply, Tozer came across as more extroverted, whilst Moriarty came across as more introverted. I saw both authors numerous times during the weekend, and was reminded of this each time.

Seeing this difference, and being reminded about it, made me think about the way we, as a society, seem to favour extroverts. A lot of modern jobs often require ‘networking’ and small talk and people who are good at this are often rewarded through job promotions and the like. Many people describe confidence, and the ability to easily converse to strangers of people who you have just met, as attractive. Introverts, however, are less likely to be good at these things and can sometimes come across as standoffish and quiet, purely because that’s the way they seem to be wired.

Though I don’t always come across as an introvert (in certain moods and situations I seem incredibly  extroverted), I would say I am an introvert through and through. I get incredibly self-conscious around and have trouble talking to people who I admire, find intimidating or find attractive. In the past, I have been led to believe that people found me standoffish and unapproachable and that it seemed like I thought I was better than everyone else. None of this was true, but because I wasn’t outgoing and struggled to talk to people I didn’t already know, that’s how I came across.

Obviously, not all extroverts are like the examples I have given, and introverts are not like I have described, and I am in no way criticising extroverts. However, I can’t help but feel that as a society we need to give introverted people a break and accept that different people are comfortable in different situations and should adjust our expectations. Maybe then differences in personalities won’t be as noticeable as it sometimes was at BWF.

Social Media and Reading

With the rise of the Internet and social media, a lot of people have started doing a a lot of their reading online. While this amount varies from person to person, the ease of access to a large variety of articles and electronic books has meant online reading has become the main form of reading for some people, particularly Gen Y’s and Millenials. Unsurprisingly, this has gotten others up in arms, and they argue that reading and literacy rates are falling.

At the 'Text Marks the Spot' session 'What I Read: Why I Write', Sean Williams, author of numerous books including but not limited to the Astropolis series and the computer game tie-in book The Force Awakens, grew up in a house with two teachers and books everywhere. He never had any restrictions placed on what he read, even if whatever he was reading could be considered not appropriate for the age he read it at. He grew up loving reading, and spoke of how important it is to him. James Moloney, author of numerous novels including but not limited to The Book of Lies and Dougy, on the other hand didn’t become interested in reading books until well into his teens through reading at school. Before that, Moloney says he could never find any books that he was interested in. Instead, he says he would read informative things like newspaper articles, especially focusing on sport. Due to this, Moloney arguably has had a reading life similar to those experienced by people now with social media.

Despite the obvious differences, both Williams and Moloney argue that young people should be encouraged to continue reading regardless of the format because at the end of the day they are still reading, which is clearly a good thing. Numerous studies support this, and one done by the Pew Research Centre has found that millenials are actually out reading older generations. The same study found that young people see public libraries as less essential than the older generations. This shift clearly demonstrates the effect the Internet and social media is having on forms of reading. For people to say though that young people aren’t reading at all is false. I think it just reflects the way that older generations never completely understand the younger generations, and end up critiquing them and making generalisations, rather than just accepting that things change. For example, when rock ‘n’ roll first became popular, there was a huge outcry that the youth were being corrupted, yet society has survived the transition.

Reading appears to be just as popular, if not more so, with Gen Y’s and Millenials than it is compared to older generations. Though the format is changing, literature and reading are always going to have a place in society. I think people just need time to accept that physical books are not always going to be the main form, though in the mean time, it would be nice if they toned back the criticisms.