The Lumiere Reader has a good write up of “Self-confessed writer of whale pornography Philip Hoare" and "fellow Brit boy-gent Geoff Dyer...almost completely ignoring mediator Harry Ricketts." so I'll just point you there for that session and add an interesting quote:

“History being written before it happens” - How is that possible? Do we rise to expectations? Self fulfilling prophicies?

Bill Manhire – guest of the Steve Braunius show

Steve's coloumn in the Sunday Star Times (28/03/10) summing up his experience at Writers & Readers was very honest (including the Damien Wilkins story!). He is a rogue with alcohol issues, a diva and Bill was very patient with him. Steve pointed out their only point in common was that they'd both been to Antartica and that Bill loved it and he hated it. Hmmm, anyway, Bill as always was excellent when he was allowed to speak.

Kamila Shamsie was supposed to be in conversation with John Campbell but for some reason he never made his flight down so the irrepressible Kate De Goldi stepped in at the eleventh hour. I'm keen to read Kamila's work, the most recent is “Burnt Shadows”. Kamila said that she found images the best place to start with writing rather than other texts because you don't have other peoples words to re-write. Simple but true.
Favourite quote:
“The stories we tell tell on us” (reveal us)

VUP launch at the Atrium on Blair/Allen Sts

Bill Manhire, Kate Camp and Geoff Cochrane all launched their new collections of poems. I have to admit I have a vested interest. However I thought it was a great night despite the torrential downpour. Monsoon (how appropriate) Poon does excellent finger food! It was wonderful to hear the three of them read and catch up with lots of buddies.

Brooding Glyn, whooar.

Weds contd

Audrey Niffenegger was funny and self-deprecating, it looked like a lot of book clubbers had come to see her in little clusters. I didn't feel like I got any deep insights about the process of writing from her but her visual art work sounds intriguing. Lynn Freeman got her talking about her time spent researching her second novel in graveyards, particularly Highgate cemetary, where she now works as a tour guide. Writer's equivalent of method acting perhaps?

Peter Singer and Rod Oram spent their session agreeing that we need to “do good”. I was mostly mesmerised by Sean Plunket sitting on the edge of his chair, swinging his head around and knocking his head piece mic. I would have liked to ask Peter Singer what he thinks we should do to combat “do good” fatigue – How do we sustain the level that is required to make change?

Chloe Hooper was replaced by Derek Johns and I am very ashamed to say I actually dozed off during this session! I've never done that before but there you have it. My only excuse is that I was up late the night before.

Richard Dawkins played to a packed house at the Michael Fowler Centre. He really was (if you'll excuse then pun) preaching to the converted. The session started with a 30 minute lecture from Dawkins which you could have got from reading some of his work. That was followed by some rather sycophantic, unchallanging questions from Bernard Beckett. I left as they opened the questions up to the audience but I heard it went on the same way. I was a bit dissapointed, it seemed too down pat and a bit lazy of Dawkins.

Thursday opened with Geoff Dyer talking with Emily Perkins. Emily asked good questions, they had a good raport on stage and he came across as very charming. He talked a bit about recording peak experiences in your life, about primal premeditated moments. What emotional luggage do you bring when you visit loaded places like memorials? His readings were humerous but although he is often called a “counter tourist” I got the feeling that he is really just another wealthy neurotic Englishman abroad.

I was looking forward to Glyn Maxwell as one of the (only two!) internationl poets this year and he didn't disapoint. He talked with Fergus Barrowman about form and rhyme and beats and how you need to know a lot about them before you can break them. He talked about having a happy childhood and the influence of Wales, how he just loved the sound of words, the musicality of them. Something you hear over and over again from different poets (musicality - not necessarily the happy childhood!). Perhaps if you have no dark obsessions you need to focus on musicality?

More sessions to come soon...

Writers and Readers week is always an exciting, stimulating time and this year was no exception.

The main disappointment for me is that there are no longer NZ writer focused sessions at the Dans Palais. In fact where has the Dans Palais gone? I know it was a small venue but it was so charming.

Also didn't the Gala Opening used to have drinks afterwards? I guess they are cutting back on costs, shame.

I managed to be privy to basically all of the events at the Embassy including the schools events on Tuesday, which, by the way, really raised my hopes. No matter what the media says, there are plenty of smart and engaging youths in our community. Some had travelled from as far away as Picton.

As I mentioned earlier, the Gala Opening on Tuesday night lacked the sense of occasion it seemed to have in previous years although the session itself was a great little intro to the week, chaired by the glorious Kate de Goldi. Kamila Shamsie, Neil Cross, Gil Adamson and Audrey Niffenegger chatted about their novels. If I had to pick one author to read out of the four I would try Shamsie with Gil Adamson a close second.

Wednesday opened with Sarah Waters, the session was chaired by her publisher Lennie Goodings. It's unusual for a writer's publisher to interview them on stage, it runs the risk of being a glammed up press conference. Lennie had been interviewing her on the whole world tour and they had it down pat, a bit too pat, which was a shame, as I'm sure a good Chair would have teased some great moments out of the hour. Still Waters was charming and the audience loved her.

In contrast Emily Perkins with Caroline Baum was a great session. I hadn't heard of Caroline before, her bio says: Caroline Baum was the arts editor of Melbourne’s Sunday Herald and the features editor at Vogue Australia. She has presented ABC TV’s book show Between the Lines, and was executive producer of ABC Radio National’s Arts Today. She has also hosted Foxtel’s book show Talking Books. Caroline became the founding editor of Good Reading magazine in 2001. In 2006 she produced and co-wrote her first television documentary, In Search of Bony, for SBS. Her company, Two Heads Media, currently has several TV projects in development. She is a regular contributor to national (Australian) newspapers and magazines.

No wonder she is a fantastic interviewer. Emily was smart and sharp. Quotes I liked: “When we tell stories we are controlling time” “Writing is a mapping process”. Emily also said something along the lines of being sick of “illuminating endings” or just any endings or seeing life as a narrative arc. Hmm sounds like she's been hanging out with Damien Wilkins.

I'll continue with these notes shortly