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Observations from the Sydney Writers’ Festival 2011

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I’m safely home again after my trip to this year’s Sydney Writers’ Festival. I really enjoyed the event and the people I spoke to also enjoyed it. While I was at the event I had an hour between sessions to have a beer and do a bit of writing. I made a few notes on the event that I thought I would share:
  • Writers’ festivals are predominately attended by middle aged women who dream of being an author.
  • Everyone fancies themselves as an intellectual (me included).
  • Actors have to dress eccentrically.
  • Publishers are continually being pitched books, especially by writers who haven’t actually finished a first draft. Publishers refer to random pitches from strangers as “another one”.
  • Writers are always being asked the same 3 questions.
  • Some writers love the crowds, others would clearly prefer to be at home writing. It sucks being a famous/successful introvert.
  • Sessions about writing are very popular, especially amongst those still working on their first book.
  • Sydney has an obsession with coffee culture.
  • Due to the coffee culture they have no idea what a cup of tea is meant to taste like.
  • The smallest population at the event is the male under 40 crowd. I’m sure I was meant to have a minority discount token as a result.
  • Apparently you have to be a feminist to be a female author, even if you write romantic fiction about finding the right man to take care of you.
  • Judging by the Sydney Dance Company’s posters I need to see more productions: all the female dancers are hot and naked.
  • Handing out promotional bottle openers at a writers’ festival is a poorly thought out strategy. It should have been a coffee mug, book mark, or cork screw.
  • Handing out promotional pens is a great idea, the lovely people at Pilot pens gave me a Frixion Clicker that isn’t even on the market yet.
  • Politics at the writers’ festival tends to be a more neutral topic than you would think. The older population and the education level tend to lean towards rational rather than partisan divisions.
  • Most people in the publishing industry are passionate about books, just like the readers. The least passionate people seem to be the ones who make the marketing and buying decisions.
  • People who like dead trees are a largely unaware of what is happening in e-books and the progressions they have made.
  • Readers at the festival were spotted reading on their phones, tablets, e-readers and of course DTB. DTB are still the most popular, but even e-readers are taking off among the older readers.
  • The sales of Michael Connelly’s latest book are apparently 45% e-books.
  • Julian Morrow (The Chaser) and his wife Lisa are really nice.
  • The Chaser, despite the best efforts of Channel 7, 9, BBC and the Queen, are still hugely popular.
  • Shamini Flint probably sold more books and garnered more fans from chairing a crime writers’ session than her advertising for the past year. Witty + Funny + Getting Michael Connelly telling jokes = Sales!
  • Gail Dines probably alienated more people with her polemic vitriol than she intended. Then again she is blind to facts and probably doesn’t care.
  • The people of Sydney were very friendly. They were just like Western Australian’s, except for their constant IV drip of coffee and lack of familiarity with sunny days.

More on the Sydney Writers’ Festival tomorrow; my dog – fur-kid, who am I kidding – needs more attention.

Book review

Book Review: Unleashed – Emily Kimelman

I had some feedback from my sister about how all the books I read have the same covers. I am blessed with siblings, a sister and brother, who are both smart and are not afraid to speak the truth. I think it comes from being raised upon a farm. Farmers and their families tend to be a bullshit free zone because you see life all around you. We all still laugh when we hear someone talk about how they became vegetarian when they realised that animals were made out of food: naive much?

Hopefully my sister will see this book cover and see something different, mainly because while this book sat safely in my favourite categories of reading, it also was something outside the box. I mean, look at the cover: no guns, no macabre hints, no violently stylized text. Read the blurb: how can a dog walker be the hero in a mystery thriller? Which is exactly why you should read Unleashed and enjoy.

I wasn’t surprised to learn that Emily, the author, was a dog walker when she was studying English at university. Dog owners will understand what I mean when they read this book. All of those little things that all dogs do, like proudly displaying the couch they have just chewed to pieces – Iz dones good, huh! – when you come home. For readers who like well written and well constructed novels, Emily’s degree clearly didn’t go to waste, including the ending that caught me off-guard (something that rarely happens).

This was a well paced and involving novel. I literally read it in one sitting today (well if you ignore the break to make lunch), so if it wasn’t an e-book you would call it “a real page turner”. Plus the book has a dog on the cover. A dog!

My dog is cute and helps me read by laying on my feet.
Book review

Book Review: The Deadman: Hell in Heaven – Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin

I’m not a fan of gambling. I once watched a friend of mine place $1000 worth of $1 bets on roulette in the space of half-an-hour before heading to the ATM to get more money to throw away. I’m pretty sure I could have found more fun things to do with that grand, and not all of them would have been immoral. Since I’m not a fan of gambling I’m not a fan of horse racing, a sport that exists merely in order to gamble. In spite of that, I feel the need to use horse-racing vernacular.

Since I have begun receiving each Deadman novella prior to release, I feel like I’ve had the inside running on the Darby winner. Hell in Heaven is the third in the series and once again it is a winner! It will be on sale from tomorrow (4th May) so grab it. If you like a well written, pacy, horror thriller, this book, and series, is for you.

A quick recap is in order, but I’ll try not to add any spoilers, the last time I did friends disowned me, even though I was saving them from The Crying Game. The hero of this series is Matt Cahill and his trusty axe. In the first book, Matt recovered from a mild case of death to discover that he could now see the evil eating away at people’s souls. This lead him to discover he had picked up a nemesis he dubbed ‘Mr Dark’. In the second book Matt has set out to track down Mr Dark and introduce him to his axe. To find answers he stops off at a mental hospital. Nothing bad ever happens in a mental hospital. Now in the third installment Matt has stumbled into Heaven, population 136, actually 137: they were expecting him. Matt may be able to see evil, but does it have to be evil that makes bad things happen?

This series has kept me rapt from the first page, quite an accomplishment considering that the authors have been running a baton relay of writing. Fortunately these authors are the Jamaican sprint team doing the 4x100m relay, each stage just gets better and better. A few thrills, a bit of mystery, a strong overarching storyline, a cool lead character and a few horrifying bad guys, should keep people glued to their e-reader (unless you prefer to read dead trees, in which case glued to the page). Also I should note the bonus chapters for the next installment of the Deadman series, The Dead Woman, will be by David McAfee and appear to promise the series will keep going strong.