words to read by

four days of words and ideas and conversation and queues. yes, the sydney writer's festival contained all sorts of wonders, inspiration even struck and left a bit of a welt.

day one sessions included a question of characters, making a book (hoped for a bit more from sonya hartnett), wikileaks and the challenge for journalism.





the five of us then moved onto a german beer hall for drinks and dinner.








day two sessions were girls just wanna? before heading into conversations with richard fidler: curt stager's deep future (remember richard from doug anthony allstars?) bought stager's book and had it signed - ooh err. dashed over to the mint for radical sydney (bought the book too), listened to french kissing from the sunny wharf before moving onto the australian pub. missed getting into a couple of evening sessions because of the lllllloooonnngggg queues. so dinner in china town before heading back to the wharf for ghost stories, funny and impressive.



day three sessions were singapore sling where i fell in love with shamini flint. the woman is AWESOME and i want to be like her when i grow up. she writes crime fiction which is not my thing but she's just great, so i bought her book (and got it signed because i'm like a fan now). ha! then onto digilit, before who's your daddy? this session was held in the bangarra mezzanine, not a good choice for a warm afternoon, sun reflecting off the bay. i can't remember what was said. cities of the dead was next and i got to introduce others to the glory that is shamini. they were equally in awe. spoken four was FANTASTIC - performance poets. mike simms, kelly-lee hickey, candy royalle and rives (who gave me his writer's pass when i was sitting at the front of the line to get in, he called me easy too - so not true). three highschool students presented as well - how very cool.

a bit of a sleep in on day four, it was sunday so to be expected. only three sessions today since there were planes to catch. america or china: you decide, then from the sunny wharf again was the israel question before the curious world of dr karl kruszelnicki. that was a fabulously entertaining session full of wonder. i like intelligent people who make their passion accessible to everyone.


and then there was arriving back to cold raining melbourne. the holiday was over.
some of the pics are courtesy of jamie