How Mildura Writer Festival Brings People Together and Transcends Literature
Love of reading
and writing for thousand years, have been a wonderful means for humankind.
This is to share one of our most basic instincts behavior with our fellow human
beings. Surrounding all types of writing styles or even genre or sub-genre is
the idea of authorship, the respect and ethical behavior that writers brings to
inspire their readers. The spirit of writing, in most cases, is far more
important and have more influences on readers than the quality of author’s
work. Therefore, Mildura Writer Festival is a unique literary festival that
brings and connects many of most beloved writers and poets to engage with
readers in a unique intimate setting. The festival also provides a unique
opportunity and experience for writers who can combine their intangible trait
with their literary skills.
For the last two
years I am participating in the festival as a student which not only helped me
learn and connect with some well-known contemporary local, national and
international authors but also opened a new horizon for me to be a professional
writer. Participating in the festival certainly increased the love and passion
that I have for books and authors to think in a subjective manner. However,
there are greater lessons to be learned from participating in the well-liked
community events, books and by extension, the writers who writes them. It can go
beyond cultural differences; and obviously there are stylistic differences between
authors who write fiction, non-fiction or poems, but in general, writers play a
significant role in the communities wherever they go. Similarly, all fans of
writers including me will appreciate the incredible feats or achievements they bring to the festivals like in Mildura. This festival is a good example of connection between writers and readers who engages with their readers more openly than other festivals. Simply put, writers have a way of bringing people together. In a day,
in an age when settling cultural differences is of utmost importance, turning more
towards books in a festival type setting is a reasonably viable way to bring
the world closer together.
The best example at this year’s
festival was the presence of an American writer Jason Porter who in his
conversation in an
unreminiscent way tried to share the
American style of writing and his inspiration to literature at the opening
night. Interestingly, the conversation was more about himself as a fiction
writer than his first and only novel, Why
Are You So Sad! Truly transcendent writers are those that can combine
not only their literary work but also how they view the world and share them
with their fans, readers and other literary enthusiasts.
When the sun disappears
into the morning sky
The Wimmera Red Dessert
The numbness will
start gripping under everyone’s feet
It’s so real to be
alone
When the darkness
is falling
The ground trembles
under everyone’s feet
As the thunder
brings fear and blackened mass
Yes, fear the
Tsunami of one’s mind
It’s quiet, no
matter what rumbling thunder brings
Quiet, silence but
it is just before the storm!
No one knows how
long it will lost
Rumbling is close
in a distance
Darkness is falling
as black as pitch
Changing in its
hazy mass
Converting shape
shifting
The Murray
seashores into water world of debris
The dark color of
surging waters
Encompasses all in
its route
Jeff pays attention
to the scenes of children playing
As it turned to
terror of the day
All that happened in a flash of a day
All that happened in a flash of a day
Photo by: Getty Images |
Joe Cinque’s Consolation review: A disturbing, account
of notorious killer
The book by Helen Garner offers a
realistic and distressing account of true events of a betrayal in one of the
quietest suburbia of the Australian capital city, Canberra. It is a true story
that Garner followed and wrote about the legal case of Anu Singh, an attractive
Indian origin law student at the Australian National University. It is a
remarkable confessionary story that not only got the eyes of Garner but also
drew the attention of the whole country, in a sense that people in the broader
community found hard to believe how an intelligent university student became a
victim to a female predator. The story is hard ranching and at the same time
difficult to come into terms with how a life could fall through so many
hands and so easily.
There are so many questions and
unresolved court procedural issues in the book to be answered but the author intentionally
chooses not to go in that path. Instead she writes how Joe Chinque languished,
being drugged and helplessly kept by unstable Singh for an entire weekend
before he dies. The author presents a strong narrative of couple’s relationship
when both partied with other family and friends at a quite Canberran suburb. It
is quite evident that from a very early stage of the couple’s relationships,
Singh has a sinister plan to kill Joe Chinque.
Garner begins the book by
incorporating the transcript of phone calls between the couples but it seems
from the start that they have dubious relationship. The author deals primarily
with the aftermath of the death – legal proceedings, the ongoing grief of
Chinque’s family, the culpability of the court trials and other psychiatric
analysis that favours Singh to serve a mere four years jail term. The couple’s
relationship almost falls apart when Singh failed at university thus greatly
affected her by a raft of mysterious but serious health issues. As a
consequence of dropouts from university and other social anxiety of early multicultural
society she starts using drugs that was common within the middle - class
families. For Anu Singh such failure not to be able to perform her normal
social role become more personal. Her nervous equilibrium began to suffer as
she starts to hate her own body and blames it on Joe for giving her Ipecac to
keep her weight down. This is significant part of the book as Garner describes Singh
as “a drastic dieter and a driven frequenter of gyms, whom obsessed with
physical imperfections both real and imagined”.
Image by Jeff |
The other important character in the
book whom described by the author is Madhavi Rao. She not only acts as
handmaiden to Anu Singh as she facilitates the plan and the farewell dinner
party to end the life of Joe but also lends money to Singh to buy the lethal
drug. The two-young belligerent university students invite several other
students to attend these macabre celebrations, where most guests know that the
dinner party was basically organised to kill Joe. The guests seem intrigued and
sceptical about the plan. After all, Anu was well-known for telling self-dramatizing
tall stories. But the drugs she procures are all too real. The writer quite
meticulously put together the confession of one woman who was invited to the
dinner party as every guest had been informed that the purpose of the dinner
was to allow the hostess to kill herself. This is the great mystery in the book
as everyone was aware about murder plot but no one informed the police or the victim’s
family. Ultimately, Singh become successful to inject Joe with heroine several
times and drop Rohypnol into his coffee which he subsequently died later that
day. In the initial trial Singh successfully made her legal battle to be tried
by the judge alone, who eventually convicted of manslaughter; while Rao was
acquitted and later migrated to America.
The author, Helen Garner brings the grief of loss into words that contents the sudden loss of Joe Chinque. His mother rages throughout the legal battle in the courtroom. The book such as Joe Cinque’s Consolation often dignify the parents’ agony and indignation. The author also becomes part of the book as she greatly praises Maria Chinque as the stalwarts in this episode of loss.
Photo by: Getty Images |
The author, Helen Garner brings the grief of loss into words that contents the sudden loss of Joe Chinque. His mother rages throughout the legal battle in the courtroom. The book such as Joe Cinque’s Consolation often dignify the parents’ agony and indignation. The author also becomes part of the book as she greatly praises Maria Chinque as the stalwarts in this episode of loss.
Gail Jones: Lecture of Hope
What an honour to be part of the La
Trobe University's 50th Anniversary Lecture by well-loved Gail Jones on
final day of the Mildura Writer Festival. The fine lecture by Jones which was
titled ‘All that howling space – reading and writing in explosive times’
was a mind-blowing moment for me. During her entire one-hour lecture she used
an image of a ramshackle condition library which was bombed during WWII in
Nazi, Germany. She begins her lecture by asking a question which was worded as
What is a moral conundrum? In her well eloquent speech, she explored many
different aspect of reading and writing in war zone areas. What really struck
me when she was explaining that three men in the image bellow were searching answer
for the war that also destroyed the library. The men seem relaxed in a way that
they will find the answer in the books they are looking. Before the lecture I had
an impression and personal experience that when there is war and destruction
people normally think for a safe passage to escape or shelter somewhere safe.
However, her lecture thought me to ponder about alternatives in difficult
situations. In this way, her response to such catastrophe and destruction that
caused by Luftwaffe during WWII caused extensive damage to the library but it was no deterrence for curious people to find some books to read.
Image by Jeff |
There are many lessons that I
learned during this concluding lecture. First, I learned that reading and
writing are an important part of life even in volatile and explosive situations.
Second, I should not take things for granted for instance having access to world
class education as others fight for this basic human right. Third, I also learned
that It is never too late to start learning, reading and writing.
Photo by: Getty Images |