There is truly something for everyone at MWF this year, though fewer sessions with individual poets than one might expect, and an attempt has been made to save festival-lovers some dosh by packaging tickets together, so I hope that goes down well with those of us who are a little less decisive in our purchases. (Maybe a discount on purchases of four or more tickets across the fortnight is on its way?)
Congratulations are due to Rosemary Cameron for allowing the festival to expand to fit its new Fed Square spaces across the last two festivals - best wishes for the future to this retiring director.
Do look out for fantastic festival blogger Estelle Tang on the MWF blog as she will keep you posted on many good things. (She can also be heard on SYN FM on Saturdays.)
I am hoping to get to hear Dennis Loy Johnson of Melville House and MobyLives fame at some point, and though I am delighted she is here, I am pretty much keeping away from MJH so that her mystique is preserved. There are some authors who really should keep out of the limelight so we keep asking questions - I'm a bit odd about that, but one day I'll hold forth on the matter in more detail. For now, I'm happy for her to tell us she's boring wherever she chooses to do so - and I respect her, dammit! for doing that - and to find her books completely compelling instead.
So enjoy whatever you get to - there's plenty happening. Congratulations are due to Tom Cho and Kate Middleton for receiving nominations for The Age Book of the Year awards, winners of which will be announced tonight - you can read the shortlist here.
To kick off my infinitesimal contribution to publicising the presence of a digital publishing program at MWF this year,
accept this update on matters digital from Kate Eltham, CEO of the Queensland Writers' Centre, who is appearing at some MWF events after
this steam punk publishing venture with the ABC's Pool.
Kate, Nick Earls, Kim Wilkins and Hinemoana Baker are travelling through Queensland by steam train to commemorate the 1990 Writers' Train, and blogging and collaboratively publishing about their trip as they go.
In other digi news, publishers at MWF can see first hand what
CommentPress and Sophie (
this one, not
this one) are all about by attending a workshop with Bob Stein of the
Institute for the Future of the Book. I am surprised to learn that these tools have been in development for close to seventeen years - I first came across CommentPress in 2007 or thereabouts, as
part of the publishing platform for McKenzie Wark's 2007 publication,
Gamer Theory. A more recent example of how CommentPress can be used for publishing discussion
is here. I am looking forward to hearing Stein speak at a couple of things on Thursday 27th.
And now, for something not entirely different - Richard Nash, elsewhere, speaking of another festival in another town, is inviting people to vote on SXSW programs, including a proposal for The Novel in 2050:
"...The spiel is “Research shows reading a book for as little as six minutes may cut stress levels in half. But have Twitter-length attention spans decreased demand for novels? What is the future of the “non-networked” book? This panel will debate the relevance of novels in a networked world.”
Questions to be asked include:
Will novels exist in 2050? What will they look like?
Have modern Twitter-length attention spans decreased interest in novels?
How might crowdsourcing and collaboration contribute to the creation of a novel?
What are some recent examples of networked books?
Are young people reading novels?
Does a novel communicate differently on a Kindle, iPhone, or other electronic device?
Is the Internet more of a threat to publishing than film or television were in the 20th century?
Why is technology mostly absent in the plots of contemporary novels?
How might novels use games and cross-platform storytelling?
What about novels should be preserved? What needs to change?"
I can't help thinking that a 20 year old reading this proposal in 2050 will label it 'poignant' as my son did when recently perusing my reprint of Marshall McLuhan's The Medium Is The Massage. Happy festivals, everyone.
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