Life In A Box
On attending the Newcastle Writers Festival, April 2016
I attended the Newcastle Writers Festival and was exhilarated by the conversation flowing around the water cooler, let alone during each session. I had just moved home from Melbourne to Newcastle and felt an instant sense of belonging to both worlds. I met writer Ann Beaumont in the Green Room over a cup of tea; Ann was celebrating her new biography A Man Of Many Parts, written about the father of the Hunter, Edward Charles Close. After brief conversation, I discovered that Ann and I used to live on the same street in Port Stephens. That cup of tea brought on a bout of nostalgia for us both.
Attending Carmel Bird’s session ‘This Writing Life’ proved particularly nostalgic for me. Michael Sala interviewed Carmel in the Cummings Room of City Hall where we found out about her upcoming novel, Family Skeleton. Carmel said her inspirations for the novel came from the simple experience of seeing a Hurst looking ‘out of place’ on a quiet road on her drive from Castlemaine to Melbourne which brought on memories of her high school sweetheart who was the son of a local funeral director. Carmel’s sense of humour and perspective intrigued me; she described how they used to refer to the business as ‘the box office’ and how she would have to ride with her boyfriend in a Hurst to a dance.
On talking about the writing process, Carmel described how she is often working on many writing projects at the one time, ‘It’s all bubbling along simultaneously’. She said that one must ‘always be ready for inspiration to hit you,. Host Michael Sala agreed and stated that a ‘sense of play is important’ to which Carmel agreed and added, ‘Stories can have a serious intent, but they don’t have to be solemn; they can be funny’.
Referring to her high school sweetheart again, Carmel informed us that she was surprised to find out that he had passed away, commenting that he now rides in the back of the Hurst! Carmel finished by reading us her story Monkey Business about a child’s party in the rich and snobby suburb of Toorak, Melbourne and then I left behind Carmel’s black humour to a session named The Most Forgotten Race On Earth.
Our panel members were an open and honest mob consisting of artist Blak Douglas, Adam Geczy, Joe Perry and Ellen van Neerven and hosted by Jakelin Troy. Discussion formed around racism and the mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’s, leading to incarceration. The conversation not only focused on physical incarceration, life on the inside, jail; we, the panel and the audience, discussed mental incarceration or life in a box. The thread Carmel had started in the previous session continued ironically. Adam announced that he was the only white person on the panel and asked the audience (the world) this question: ‘Incarceration. Jail life. In a box. We are pack people, we run with the mob. What happens when we are isolated? What happens when SOS is written on the torn, brown skin?’
On to politics next, Adam Geczy and Blak Douglas explained how they met and formed a bond ‘during the Howard years’ and after a brief sting about Trump – ‘you vote in a clown, you get a circus’ – spoke about the aim of their art being to appeal to the grassroots. ‘We realised we were speaking to the converted,’ Adam said in reference to educated white people like himself. Adam explained the idea, ‘you put an Aboriginal person’s artwork on the wall but don’t invite him to dinner’. Adam told us how this idea is giving voice to Aboriginal people but that they are being forgotten at the grassroots. He described the process as cultural reversal or reverse cultural tokenism.
Joe Perry said, ‘When the longboats landed, the tide changed for Aboriginal people’. The governments idea of ‘protection’ meant incarceration. Missions were set up, such as the one he grew up on at Karuah, just half an hour north of where we sat at City Hall, to protect the Aboriginal people, but that many people died there. His phrases instilled a sense of loss in me: ‘reserves became concentration camps. They needed a passport. Education was ‘set up’. Not a citizen when born. Generational exposure to wealthy dependants. Sense of poverty engraved. Most jailed race’. Host, Jakelin asked if this meant that jails created a new space for Aboriginal communities. Joe answered in his poetic voice, ‘another institution’.
When asked about the opening night art presentation for the Newcastle Writers Festival, Ellen commented that being in the art space felt like you were ‘taking a step forward, taking a step back. A lot of our best (writers) are in jail. Incarceration of the mind. Writing gives me a voice’. Blak Douglas also stated that ‘Some of the best art can come from inside’. He left the unintended pun hanging for us to ponder.
An audience member, asked a simple question, ‘What can we do as individuals?’ Host Jakelin answered, ‘As pack animals, we all discriminate. Like a boomerang, it goes around and round and it strikes. The best thing is what you have now - a conscience.’
This ‘have a conscience’ theme overflowed to Sunday’s session ‘The Writer As Reader’ when panel member, lawyer and writer, Russell Marks commented on his choice of books: ‘Well the Keith Windschuttle books seem to be hidden (I used to work in a book shop).’
This panel, consisting of writers and reviewers Kate Holden, Russell Marks and Geordie Williamson and hosted by Andrew Nette, discussed their favourite books and the idea of reading random books versus a calculated list of modern versus classic. Below the surface, the panel allured to the need to keep tight, a canon, reconstructed, for future generations. Russell Marks explained that his canon, of twenty thousand books, is listed in what sounded like a complex Excel document. Kate Holden referred to herself as a literary pilgrim when it came to reading, and Geordie Williamson also confessed that he is a fan of reading insitu. Russell explained how an Australian can ‘become quite patriotic’ when reading overseas. Geordie admitted that ‘there is pleasure in the unexpected’ when talking about picking random books. ‘There’s a saying,’ he said, ‘the book you want to read is always beside the book you go to get.’ When Russell’s Excel sheet was questioned, Geordie backed him however up by stating that his system works because it is a ‘curated roll of the dice.’ Geordie, whose daytime hours are spent reviewing books admitted, ‘I work in a chocolate factory and I’ve lost my appetite.’
‘Reality Bites’ was the last session I was lucky enough to see. Each of the panel, Fleur Ferris, Jaye Ford, Rod Jones and Charlotte Wood discussed with host Angela Savage, how real-life experiences have infused their fiction writing. An audience member asked the panel about the ethics of using real life inspiration for fiction writing. Charlotte Wood spoke first, stating that she had in fact studied this and concluded that, ‘If we want art then we have to walk in the ethical grey area.’ Rod exclaimed, ‘I’m brutal!’ getting a laugh from the audience. Fleur, an ex-policewoman stated that if it appeared in the newspaper, she could use it, due to her past profession’s privacy clause. When asked why the panel members chose fiction over other genres such as historical fiction or memoir, Charlotte explained that she moved to fiction because although her novel is based on real events, she was not a part of those real events, rather, she was deeply moved by it, and she did not want to steal the voice of the people who were involved.
Newcastle Writers Festival director Rosemarie Milsom stated that while she did not have a particular focus in mind for the festival, she had been guided by two themes ‘How did we get to where we are, and where are we going?’ Threads of conversation entwined over the festival weekend connecting between the two port cities, Newcastle and Melbourne, and tying together Melbourne’s efforts in renewing her docks and Newcastle’s efforts in renewing her streets, produced a memory from my childhood. I remember attending a friend’s birthday party at the mission in Karuah which Joe Perry spoke of. I specifically remember an air of freedom from that weekend spent there, running along the river, eating lunch in the park, dancing in the one-room sleep out with a bunch of teenage kids.
I am glad that these threads of conversations can be taken, as Carmel Bird said, as having a serious intent, but with the openness and honesty of humour. Adam Geczy, the only white man on the panel gets it. Blak Douglas gets it. Carmel Bird gets it. Russell Marks gets it. Charlotte Wood gets it. Melbourne gets it. Thanks, Newcastle, for stripping back your tracks, right down to the grassroots. Newcastle gets it too.
