Resisting Idealised Perspectives in Education.

 

During the session entitled  What Life Teaches at the Bendigo Writers Festival, featuring John Marsden, was certainly enlightening. John Dewar, La Trobe University Deputy V-C spoke with  John Marsden, a notable author  and academic treasure, who displayed a natural humility during the discussion. He described his resistance to idealised perspectives to his education facility, Ironbark College,  and to the students. John  Marsden  dismantled common socially upheld negative stereotypes of adolescents.  Although John Marsden is at the forefront of progressive education practice in Australia, and author, he didn’t inhabit any pedestal of self-aggrandisement. This was evident in his use of language register which was expressed in a relaxed way, appropriate and relatable to the Australian colloquials commonly in use for a younger audience.  It was humorous to observe his utilisation of common place words such as “wanker” being well received by the younger audience contingency, much to the agape of more seasoned writers festival audiences sitting further away from the stage.

John Marsden bravely expressed with a candid honesty his own adolescent experiences and used these as an example for his contention that our own experiences can be a transformative process  which can inform our writing practice.

He gave the example, “characters trapped in dreadful situations and create opportunities to improve themselves, possibly discovering parts of their inner resource,  strength to transform the situation. Possible journey towards wisdom and enlightenment.”

Recommended were three premises for developing a narrative trajectory which included;

1. Find Inner strength
2. Transform the situation
3. Become someone I never thought possible.

The session spoke in terms of personal destinies and John Marsden encouraged the audience by stating, “If you are a creative person, consider teaching as a profession, as the creative part of the self and teaching interweave very nicely.”

If there was one sentence spoken that resonates completely with me as an audience participant at the Bendigo Writer’s Festival,  this was the one.

Consult an Expert

The experts on the panel during the "Consult an expert" session at the Bendigo Writers Festival included Kate Larson (director at Writers Victoria), David M. Henley (Seizure, Xourn Publishing, online producer and writer), Malcolm Neil(publishing and retailing consultant, now with digital company Kobo). This session was facilitated by Sue Gillett (Creative Writing Department La Trobe University).  Featured in this session was the importance for contemporary authors to develop a digital profile which creates the potential for critical appreciation of the author's work.

The panel contributed a wealth of information about the publishing industry as it stands today, the obstacles, the opportunities for engagement in the industry and protocols in which emerging authors need to know to get their work into the interested hands of a publishing director. Two key points were advised, firstly make your authorial work appeal to the zeitgeist,(or write for yourself disregarding the zeitgeist), second, have the ability to summarise your project in thirty seconds.

Opportunities for engagement were given through the Wheelers Centre, volunteering or working your way into an internship through the volunteer route. Utilising Arts Hub, creating a visual medium show wheel, in other words,  developing a website. This lead into a discussion about self-publishing in which The Australian Advisory of Authors is a good point in call to engage with. Self publishing companies sub-contract manuscript assessors, and print editors as well as print on demand services are companies like Blurb or Lulu.

Overall whether an author decides to follow the traditional route to attain publication, or self-publish, being a digital age,  getting published means travelling through  a digital maze.

Innovative Altruism

Innovative Altruism

                                                       

   For years there was talk around town in Melbourne and                                            

   Newcastle about this person who was negotiating  with

   owners of  empty office spaces to allow artists to work in these

   spaces until they are able to find rent paying tenants. A cool

   idea which benefits artists and crafts people, and utilises vacant

   space. The person who not only envisioned, but was able to

   manifest permission from the office owners remained elusive.

  An urban mythological character one would have thought,  until

  attending the session at the Bendigo Writers Festival called

  Brave in the New World. The urban mythological character is

  Marcus Westbury, a real person, a writing innovator, advocate

  for creative policy and agent for cultural change.

  Marcus Westbury spoke with Rob Stevenson about his project

  "Renew Newcastle" where eighty empty buildings became

  accessible for artists and simultaneously assisting  business

  owners.

 

  Marcus Westbury quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson,

  "All life is is an experiment"

  It is fitting here to include my favourite Marcus Westbury  

  quotes:

  " Trying things, taking risks,
  letting go of assessment plans and creating
  Frameworks for Risks"

"People who have the Best Ideas don't always have money."

"Investing other attributes which doesn't include money."

"How do we create cultures that are dynamic and allow new things to emerge?"

"Finding a community around your work, building a community around their work."

Further viewing of Marcus Westbury's creative work:

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/notquiteart/
www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/bespoke/

The Ethics of Writing, does a novel need to be morally good?

RATIONALIST, ra'shon-al-ist, n. An adherent of rationalism; one who rejects the super-natural element in Scripture.

Rationalist Society President Meredith Doig talked with Peter Craven, Anne Buist, David Musgrave and Anne Elvey about whether books need to be morally good.  

Anne Buist, the author of Medea's Curse discussed the controversial ethical dilemmas she faces as an author whose narratives are  directly derived from her experiences as a practitioner of psychiatry.  David Musgrave discussed the behaviour of  authors  and issues surrounding copyright.

Robust references and quotes from seminal literature were plentiful throughout the discussion. F.R. Levis' quote "Literature is a form of truth, therefore in itself is moral", Jung's comment, "Maybe the devil's grandmother knows more of woman." Bonny Cassidy's Final Theory,  Protocols of the Elder's of Zion, D.M. Thomas The White Hotel, and John Fowles famous work The Collector was also referenced in terms of  contextualising moral issues contained within the novel. Understandably, I too conceded  after reading the chloroform scene from The Collector,  to the  examination of  the morality of the  novel in terms of how a authorial work disseminates knowledge about the ways in which criminal activities are performed. The conclusion I drew was that it is not the description of abhorrent activities that should be censored, it is the task of the author to reveal the workings of the human state and activities, moreover,  the morality barometer could be located in both how the story is nuanced and through the ways the readership  responds  to the text.  Like all powerful art forms,  books have the potential to  incite, catalyse, detonate or  diffuse an audience. The author-reader relationship is pertinent in gauging the morality of a text. Novels may not be morally good, however this doesn't make the novel bereft of morality. In fact, a good immoral  textual  narrative has the potential to  initiate and encourage  the reader's questioning of their own morals,  judgements and ethical codes,  which in itself is an important activity for the development of a self-referential society.

Naturally, the tone of the discussion was quintessentially rationalist, which didn't prescribe any ultimate answers or medicinal applications as to whether it  is in fact important for a novel to be morally good. The discussion aired the question and did so in a way that challenged the audience to consider their own views. The discussion progressed  tangentially and explored  further the question "Does reading make for a better life?" With relief this was one question I could personally answer unequivocally.

On Grieving

Grief is an unassailable emotion. A state of humanness unique to each one of us, and different each time we experience the symptoms of grief. Susan Wyndham (My Mother, My Father) and Kristina Olsson (Boy, Lost) talked with Hilary Harper  during the session,"On Grieving".
This session was a sensitive insight into the human experience of grief and how writing can facilitate expressing the sometimes inexpressible feelings, thoughts, spiritual and emotional responses to  grief. Contemporary society has limited ritual contexts for people to express and come to terms with shock and  grief.  The herb garden of  writing and drawing expands regenerative opportunities with which to dignify these profound human experiences.

A Climate For Change

The Bendigo Writer's Festival provided a poignant session called "A Climate for Change".
Gerry Gill talked with authors Iain McCalman, Alice Robinson, Anson Cameron and Jane Rawson about their varied approaches to writing about the highly concerning issue of Climate Change.
The session soon became a discussion about the rapidly impeding cataclysm facing humanity, whereby Gerry Gill needed to rope the altruistic authors back into discussing more closely the material contained within each of their authorial works.  This session was highly informative and provided a variety of author's voices. The voice of author Alice Robinson I found most compelling as she provided a voice which represents young people, mothers and women, on the issue of the excruciating  reality all of humanity inevitably  have to face, which is the rapid annihilation of the natural world. The session revealed to me that the voices of young people, women and mothers on the issue of climate change has been muffled by the dominating political, scientific and burocratic voices who are merely arguing and not urgently acting to address the destruction of the natural world.

Alice Robinson's  Australian novel Anchor Point.

Overcoming New Platform Anxiety

Like any new  experience navigating a new internet platform like "Blogger" can be daunting.  Overcoming the obstacle where one might have a resistance to  embracing a new platform can be likened to teaching an adolescent how to drive, nurture the belief that you will achieve your goal and survive!!!