35 Weeks to go...
It’s been a week of consolidation, of talking to more potential authors, speakers and workshop convenors and to Berry locals who are enthusiastic and want to get involved, whether by offering their skills or by donating accomodation, services or cash.
Our vision for the Festival is to include local authors as well as more well known and high profile creative people who will challenge us to think about our lives and our society. In these days of click-bait news and sound grabs, I think Sydney Writers’ Festival artistic director, Michael Williams, was spot-on when he reflected: “What I love about books, what I love about good writing is that thing of consideration, of slowing things down. And so, whether it’s through fiction or through journalism, or through screenwriting … what our writers are doing is giving us an understanding of the world, a relationship with the world that is slower, deeper and more complex.*
We are also trying to cater to a broad range of literary tastes. We hope to include many fiction genres including crime, historical fiction, literary and women’s, as well as memoir and social and political writing and poetry. Let’s hope there’s something for everyone!!
Make sure you blank out the whole weekend in your diary (21-23 October) including the Friday, when there will be workshops including some on writing skills, publishing, researching and poetry.
*Sydney Sentinel 22 April 2021