Notes: Mildura Writers Festival 2024

Published: 22 Jul 2024 | Updated: 22 Jul 2024

What I learned or found interesting from attending my first Writers Festival!

Table Of Contents

Day 2: Reading & Writing Place Into Being

Featured Melinda Hinkson, Melissa Lucashenko, Lilian Pearce, Emily Potter & Nikita Vanderbyl.

"What does the practice of writing and reading about placemaking reveal and why is it a radical act? Our speakers explore the ways in which their work redefines the spirit of place."

Places as an anchor in creative writing (the well from where stories spring.)
Words bring experiences to life in ways we never could otherwise.
A writer brings only half of the conversation, the reader brings the rest.
Stories tell you how a community sees itself and the place they live.
Reading seems solitary but it's still deeply social (and shares ideas.)
Books give us a way to start difficult conversations.
Write with responsibility and care. Your words change people's worlds.
Relationships with places are complex, writing helps us explore that.
Rural folks are often more attuned to their local environment
Our perceived separation from nature may root our environmental challenges.
History involves as much storytelling as fiction, just different styles.
Places affect us as much as we affect them.
Read what you're interested in. Otherwise, what's the point?
Every book you write is different, you learn how to do so anew.
Things always could be different. History wasn't inevitable and neither is the future.
Storytelling is shared among cultures.
Outsiders have the power to see through locals consider 'truth.'
Listening is an important (and forgotten) component of community and understanding.
Reading and storytelling help us create the future and new narratives.
What's between the lines is as important as the words themselves.
Learn and unlearn. Be open to new ideas.
Indigenous writers ask for permission before writing about another mobs' country.
Inaction is still action.

Day 2: Stone Yard Devotional

Featured Michael Winker and Charlotte Wood.

"Stella Prize-winning author of The Natural Way of Things, and the nonfiction work, The Writer’s Room, shares thoughts on her tenth book, Stone Yard Devotional, a meditation on themes of despair, grief and hope."

As attention spans shrink, writing a slow book becomes a radical act.
Contemplation is a valuable skill we need to cultivate.
Books don't just have to tell a story, they can play with the art of the written word.
Vivid descriptions enliven text, but leaving room for imagination deepens immersion.
Being a ascetic can be ostentatious.
We're all running from something, but we can't run forever.
We all hate the mirror. What we dislike in others is what we dislike in ourselves.
What's more important? The frustrations of living alone, or living together?
Belief systems are breeding grounds for stark contradictions.
The urban-rural divide: a false dichotomy we often demonize or romanticize.
We seem to be losing complexity and nuance.
Writing in the 'present tense' is intimate yet claustrophobic.
First-person intimacy vs. third-person versatility: choose based on your narrative needs.
Forced proximity, a potent trope, unveils personalities and breeds meaningful conflict.
Stillness is terrifying because we have to confront the voices in our heads.
In a world of constant consumption, stillness can feel like emptiness.
Attention is precious and exhausting.
Sustain long-term projects by finding new 'heat sources' to weave into your work.
Describing a book as 'quiet' is a critique or compliment, depending on who uses it.
The less we know of someone, the more they haunt us after parting.

Day 2: Compassion

Featured Nic Brasch and Julie Jason.

"From the author of the Miles Franklin longlisted Madukka: The River Serpent, Compassion is an exploration of the complex and dangerous lives of Aboriginal women in 1800s colonial New South Wales."

Reading and writing plays is a great way to learn good dialogue.
Research fuels your work and expands collective knowledge.
Chase curiosity. Challenge conventional wisdom (that's where the richest ideas are.)
Your characters are best revealed through their speech.
Novels are also memoirs, because everything we write comes from our experience.
Reading is research. Both are important for writers.
Good longform journalism is great inspiration for fiction.
If you want to keep writing, do it for yourself, and don't care what others think.
Play with point-of-view for experimental writing.
A story can be as complex as you wish, but it needs a thread to tie it together.
Anger is a driving force behind our best works.
Stories reveal the world we want to create.
Writing doesn't have to be solitary: community is a lifeline.
Improv, theatre, poetry, and playwriting enrich prose.
Always stand up for yourself and look after the underdog.

Day 2: The Poet & The Sufi Singer

Featured Marjon Mossammaparast and Farhan Shah.

"A discussion of Sufism, the mystical expression of Islam, and the disciplines within it that include poetry, music, dance, and theology."

Logic ends where love begins.
Knowledge stems from learning. Wisdom from hard-won experience.
Music is one of the few sources of magic left.
We reconnect with and escape from ourselves through art.

Day 3: Ask The Publisher

Featured Terri-Ann White.

"The director of one of the country’s most ambitious imprints shares her passion for those difficult-to-categorise, yet impactful works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry."

Passionate readers are the key to a book's success, nothing else.
Write the books you want to read.
Beyond trends lie underserved markets desperate for books.
Small presses can devote more time and energy to their authors.
Connections are everything when promoting a book.
Excellence stands out in a sea of mediocrity, capturing attention through its rarity.
Good writing requires patience. Don't rush the craft.

Day 3: Tina Kane Emergent Writer Award

Featured Paul Kane and Gareth Morgan.

"Poet, scholar and former artistic director of the Mildura Writers Festival Paul Kane (livestreamed from the USA) presents the Tina Kane Emergent Writer Award. The 2024 recipient is Gareth Morgan, co-director of Sick Leave, a monthly reading series and occasional journal, and author of Dear Eileen and When a Punk Becomes a Spunk."

Write letters to people whose work captivates you.
Poetry can save your life.
Writing reviews sharpens critical thinking and deepens craft appreciation.
Poetry readings are excellent for meeting like-minded others.
Transform dissatisfaction with the status quo into your unique signature.
Find poetic turns of phrase in everyday life.
Find what feels good in your writing and hold on to it.
Impulses often inspire poetry. Pay attention, and accept the urges as they come.
A poem can be anything you want it to be.

Day 3: The In-Between

Featured Christos Tsiolkas and Angela Savage.

"The In-Between is a tender, affecting novel of love, hope, and forgiveness by the author of The Slap and Damascus. Join him and a long-time friend for an unflinching conversation about this latest work, the creative process and dedicating a life to literature."

Be heretical in your writing. It's far more interesting when you have something to say.
If you want to be serious about writing, treat it as work.
Great writing has complicated nuance and is resistant to ideology. Don't hedge.
Experiment with projects and styles to find your voice.
Literary criticism deepens understanding, offering insights even when we disagree.
Write to work something through and it might help someone else do the same.
Playwriting hones precision and editorial skill, maximizing impact through brevity.
Love stories are the hardest to write. They need to resist cynicism and exude grace.

Day 3: Edenglassie

Featured Melissa Lucashenko and Terri-Ann White.

"Winner of the Miles Franklin award for Too Much Lip talks about her novel, Edenglassie. Set in Brisbane, two extraordinary stories, five generations apart, debunk colonial myths and reimagine an Australian future."

Nature can be a character as much as humans can.
Exploring duality is rich ground for ideas.
To write good non-fiction, find the sweet spot between fascinating and funny.
Humor softens the blow of uncomfortable truths.

Day 3: How Reading Makes Us Human

Featured Angela Savage, Christos Tsiolkas, Charlotte Wood, Melissa Lucashenko & Nam Lee.

"An unmissable discussion with a panel of deep thinkers and accomplished writers about the value of reading."

Stories shape our identity, stirring emotion, sparking wonder, and offering escape.
You can time travel and exchange minds through reading.
It helps us feel less alone in the world.
You can write something simple and still imbue it with deep meaning.
Culture teaches us passive consumption to the detriment of nuance.

Day 4: The Great Beauty

Featured Christos Tsiolkas.

"With a literary career spanning thirty years, our 2024 guest speaker is hailed as one of the most significant contemporary storytellers at work today. His talk investigates how film as an art form has influenced his writing. The Murray Talk is presented by an esteemed writer on any subject. It was established in dedication to the memory of our festival patron, the late Les Murray, and the enduring vitality of the Murray River."

Don't confuse imagination with ideology.
Don't immediately judge. You might be surprised.
Divorced from empathy and nuance, overused language loses meaning.
When we overvalue immediacy or certainty, we lose something.
There are questions we'll never answer. That's okay.
We shy away from conflict to our detriment.
We're pushed to oversimplify and feign certainty, even when 'I don't know' is truest.
To make outstanding work, balance the broken and the beautiful.
Often the anger we feel facing problems is learned helplessness.
Faith, love, and hope are ridiculous, but they keep us alive.
Art helps us see the world anew.
When reading fiction, we don't disappear, but our existence becomes liminal.
Most media reinforces boundaries and biases rather than questioning them.
The apocalypse is always happening.
In building a better future, don't forget the now.
Embrace doubt.
Art doesn't have to be intellectual. The simplest moments captured are still profound.
Creative works are always collaborative.
There's no sorrow without joy, no joy without sorrow.
When everything rages, we need the quiet.

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