So, I was supposed to be writing a bunch of blog posts that are due this week, and today’s my day away from school, in other words, writing day. But just for a change, I got a little off track. It’s not my fault, of course – the Perth International Arts Festival brochure was delivered to my letterbox last week, and when I saw the page for the 2010 Perth Writers Festival, and read the magic words “check out the complete list of authors on our website”, well, I was off.
The festival is held in the last weekend of February, and it seems a tradition that the programme is actually not released until the end of January – perhaps pinning down writers is harder than other festival events, I don’t know. In any case, I didn’t expect to be able to find out much info, but it’s true, their website has a long, long list of authors who will be attending the 2010 Perth Writers Festival.
Of course, this got me pretty excited. Seeing writers in the flesh is, for me, the number one most inspirational experience as far as my writing is concerned. It’s nice to hear them on radio or see them on TV, it’s lovely to get writing tips off a website, and doing some writing itself is often inspirational too, but nothing gets me salivating more than actually being in a room with a writer or three at the front, hearing them speak about their writing. I think being face-to-face like that really reminds me that they are (usually!) absolutely normal people, just like me, and if they can do it, so can I.
Already, I’ve written the 2010 festival dates into my diary for next year in capital letters, and in a gold pen. But there’s more to my Perth Writers Festival preparation than that (oh, have I mentioned before that this is the coolest festival ever because nearly all the events are free? Yay, Perth!). Reading up on what the authors have written before I see them in person makes it all so much more exciting, so I’ve been trawling the catalogue of my local library, reserving books left, right and centre so that between now and the end of February, I’ll have read a good taste of what the authors on show have offered. As usual, there is a mix of international, national and local writers coming, from all different genres, so I’ve got a lot of reading to do.
If you’re interested, perhaps the most famous writer attending will be Irvine Welsh (yes, of Trainspotting fame), a writer who has actually rated a mention in my blog twice already: once, because I have real trouble getting through the strong dialect of his novels, and once because I was worried that having his book Porno listed as overdue at my local library in Germany could cause me real problems when my mother-in-law received an overdue notice to her address and wondered what on earth I was reading.
Anyway, no time for writing now, I’ve got too much reading to do!
