Writers festivals and talking animals.

The Bendigo Writers Festival is slowly approaching, and I'm reminded of the first time I ever attended a festival focused on authors instead of bands, and on literary theory instead of guitar-strumming musicians. I was 16, and I was head-over-heels for Isobelle Carmody. When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with Carmody's Obernewtyn Chronicles. Those books had it all; adventure, a star-crossed romance, and people who could talk to animals.

Yes - I still have this, all these many years later!

I'd never been to a writers festival before, but that year, when I was 16, it was announced that Isobelle Carmody would be one of the guests at the Melbourne Writers Festival. My memory is dim now, but what I remember is an overwhelming amount of people. I remember being surprised not only by the number of attendees, but also by the variety of people I saw. There were kids in giant school groups, teenagers, and adults, all of them filing into the different venues. I knew people read, but I didn't realise just how many people were passionate about reading. It was a bit of a wake up call for me, to realise that I wasn't alone in my love of literature, ridiculous as that sounds now. I sat through the panels and sessions and finally ran into Isobelle Carmody outside, where she was signing autographs. I remember this part vividly; how strangely shy I was as she took my copy of The Keeping Place and asked for my name. I remember her saying she had a sister named Samantha, and then she was gone. I think it was the first time I'd ever met someone I truly idolised. Carmody was always an inspiration to me. She wrote Obernewtyn when she was 18, and during my own teenage years, whenever I felt young and uninspired I remembered that fact. 

 

A writers festival wasn't just a gathering of authors and people, but also a gathering of ideas, of and of shared understanding. For me, it was an opportunity to realise that I wasn't alone in feeling passionate about what I loved.