Melbourne Writers Festival: Enquire Within (Sunday Week 1)

Over the last week I managed to write up my Melbourne Writers Festival wrap up posts for Friday and Saturday but my Sunday experiences were a step too far (not least because straight after MWF I went to the Pink concert so didn't get home until 1 am), so I am determined to post them today! I will still be behind though because I was off at the festival again today attending my last two sessions for this year which I will post about at some point in the next week or so.

Margo Lanagan

My first session was Writing Baroque with Margo Lanagan and Alice Melike Ulgezer, author of The Memory of Salt. I will start this post with a confession that I mainly chose this session just so I could hear Margo Lanagan speak! Too bad if that sounds a bit too fangirly...it's the way it is! I came away contemplating reading the other author's book too, so maybe I can be fangirly to her next year!

The moderator for the session started by saying that the idea for the session actually came from a publisher and a newspaper article which suggested that Australians are liking amore restrained style of writing. At one point an example of this was given relating to Christos Tsiolkas. Both authors agreed that Dead Europe was very baroque in style but the much more restrained style that he showed in The Slap was the book that really sold well. Whilst gothic style writing is still allowed, baroque is a little less accepted. He then asked the authors to define baroque when it related to writing.

Alice described it as a lived experience, an interior rhythm translated onto the page, as extravagance and mysticism, as where she comes from translated on the page.. As well as being a novelist, Alice is a musician and so she finds her writing influenced by music - different rhythm patterns, textures and tones.

Margo started by saying that baroque is in the eye of the beholder but she did also suggest that the baroque style is a starting point for those that write fantasy. By way of definition she said that the baroque draws attention to itself and digresses into strangeness. That idea of digressing into strangeness is a good definition of Margo's own writing at times. She acknowledged that she uses this more over the top style in specific ways in her writing, often slowing the reader down so that they have to work to appreciate certain parts of the story. It can be used in service of the story or it can be a bit of ego on the part of the author.

The moderator then asked Alice to talk about the writing of her book which was described as a heady mixture of fact and fantasy. When she wrote the book, the author wrote with a great sense of urgency and how she had to write it, so the baroque nature of it was just intuitive. She did talk about going into a bit of a trance state whilst writing, listening to the same music over and over at certain parts of the book.

After being asked why she is published as YA here (because that is where her first books were classified), Margo Lanagan talked about her writing. She talked about when she is applying a particular style to a section she has to decide which part of the scene she wants to allow to flower and what she wants to flow. She has to remember when to calibrate and when to allow the scene to flow. Really she is experimenting with ways of getting through a scene because she wants people to experience the exact flow of emotion as she intended.

Alice Melike Ulgezer

The discussion then moved onto sentence structure with the moderator reading some examples of first sentences of novels - nearly all of which were very short, choppy sentences and then contrasting it with a much more lush sentence. Both authors preferred the latter form, but Margo countered with the example of someone like Cormac McCarthy who might start with the short, choppy, spare sentences but who knows when to let the prose bloom into very ornate phraseology and then pare right back again.

Other topics that were touched on were good examples of baroque writers, the influence of religion on the kinds of rhythms that you see in the more ornate forms of writing, about the growing influence of multi culturalism and how that will influence the style of Australian writing going forward, particularly as people bring their cultural influences with them in the same way that Alice has bought her dual Australian/Turkish influences into her story. While still talking about influence and where ideas come from, the moderator talked about one of my favourite Margo Lanagan short stories, Singing my Sister Down. Just listening to the discussion of where the ideas came from and how the idea of mysticism, ritual and religion influenced the story line. Religion also provided the inspiration for Night of the Firstlings, which is basically a retelling of the biblical story of the flight from Egypt, but it was also inspired by a song by Paul Kelly.

There are so many more things I could blog about from the session but I thought I would finish with these last couple of points. One of the questions asked was who are the readers of baroque. Is it YA readers predominantly? The comment was made that they are more accepting of excesses and that their inhibitions don't get in the way in the same way as they some times do for adult readers. Both authors were also asked what they were working on next. Alice is working on a novel with a similar feel to her debut novel and Margo is working on a historical novel, where she is struggling with the voice and with not giving into the fantasy style of writing.

Overall, this was an enjoyable session to attend.

Sarah Wendell

After lunch and a long chat with friends, it was time to head to the Modern Love session which featured Sarah Wendell from the popular Smart Bitches blog and Marjorie Liu. In a way, it didn't really matter who the authors were because if there is going to be a romance session that the Melbourne Writers Festival then I am going to be there to support it, because there are so few of them. Having said that, it's hard to imagine a session that was more fun that this one was - we laughed the whole way through - and it was great to have such engaging and fun speakers.

I think the moderator for this session possibly had the easiest job of any moderator in any session of the festival. Basically, she introduced Sarah and Marjorie and then let them talk! She did ask a couple of questions, but really I think she was sitting back and enjoying the ride as much as the audience did. The conversation was meandering and wide ranging going from euphemisms and bad sex to erotica, the sexualisation of young girls to feminism and romance, were ducks and so much more. Let's see if I can make sense of my notes and get some kind of summary here.

When a session starts with euphemisms and talking about how easy it is to write bad sex scenes, it gives some kind of clue as to how relaxed and free flowing the session is going to be. In talking about bad scenes, Marjorie Liu admitted that she has moved away from writing as many sex scenes because it is so difficult to write really good ones consistently. Later in the session , Lisa Kleypas was named as one author who does seem to be able to write consistently good ones. Regardless of whether a romance has sex in it or not, what it must have is sexual tension.

What the success of books like 50 Shades has done is opened more readers up to the fact that there is so much other good erotica romance out there. After all, the erotic romance genre has been around for more than 15 years, with many of the digital first publishers having large erotic romance sections because for many readers this was the only place to get what they wanted to read. Speaking of what readers want to read, Sarah Wendell says that she wants to have a were drop bear book written! After all, if there can be were ducks and creatures with two penises why couldn't there be a drop bear shape shifter (if you aren't aware of what a drop bear is, check out this post).

The conversation moved onto why women in particular love romance. Firstly, it is partially a question of agency - it is usually read by women, written by women, and produced by women. Another reason is that romance is one of the few places where womens sexuality is portrayed positively, and can display the kind of nurturing that people want but don't always have in real life. For example, in a romance a woman's satisfaction is always imperative and you know that by the end of a romance a hero will always truly see the heroine and make her feel valued and that she is being treated with tenderness. That doesn't mean to say that the reader can't tell the difference between the fantasy and real life (as examples, romance heroes always tend to have extraordinary stamina and never have morning breath) but it can be a roadmap to show a woman what she might value in a partner. It also enables the sexually curious to explore their interests without a physical risk and without any danger of shaming. This idea of shaming is also relevant because there is so much sexualisation of females, even of young girls, and women learn early to use sex as a currency. This idea of a positive sexual portrayal can counteract some of these more negative messages. Later in the session, a question led to a discussion comparing porn to romance. this idea of the positive portrayal of a womans sexuality was one of the key differences because porn is nearly always male gaze and so often women have little to no agency. Even in erotic romance, the relationship aspect should still be primary focus and still has that female gaze perspective.

One area where there is still some work to be done is around the language that is used, particularly around sexual organs. Whereas there are numerous words that can be used around the male sex organ, there are only a couple for the female equivalent and most of them bring a degree of emotional baggage with them. One example given was the c word, which is actually one that I find a bit offensive at the best of times myself. Of course, you can avoid this by using euphemisms but then you get in dangerous territory and find terms like his sword and her sheath which can be a bit cliched. Another cliche that can be a bit dangerous is one that predominantly found in romantic suspense and that is when the couple are being chased and yet they still find time to get turned on, and get on with the deed, all the while apparently wearing an invisibility cloak which all romance couples have because unless it is integral to the plot no one ever gets caught having sex even when they do it in the strangest and most public of places!

Marjorie Liu

Speaking of cliches, the conversation turned to the idea of romances being formulaic, and during the question and answer period the topic came up about some of the more dreadful covers which for the purposes of ever ending this post I am going to join together. There is no denying that romance does have a structure but it is not that different from other genre fiction in this regard. For example, a mystery is not a good mystery unless the crime is actually solved by the end of the story. If a book is marketed as a particularly thing, then the reader has expectations of what it is that they are going to read. This is where the covers come into play as a reader wants to be able to tell by looking at the cover what it is that they expect to read. The cover cliches are often continued because of this. The buyers from the big companies exert a lot of influence in this area as they need to make sure that whatever they put on their shelves will sell. If you see a woman in a long period costume dress on a cover you aren't going to be expecting to get a paranormal or urban fantasy in the book.

One of the interesting points that came up with the idea that because of technological advances, each successive generation seems to have more leisure time to fill than their forebears and therefore the way that they can interact with entertainment is changing which we can see by the way so much entertainment invites us to interact either by tweeting at them or participate on boards as examples. The rise of fan fiction is another example of this where people engage with particular characters and then build on them.

A question was asked from the audience about romance and feminism and how that compares to the real world and in the course of the answer part of the discussion focused on the fact that romance must be inherently feminist because of the way it is all about the female and about giving her agency, even within the more patriarchal societal rules that are in place (for example in historical romance). This also lead to some discussion about the fact that there is something wrong when there is this idea that there can only be one kind of feminism and that type must ape masculine traits like not wanting to talk about feelings and relationships. There is nothing wrong with stories that promote a female agenda. Often they are self actualising and can give a sense of empowerment.

Through the course of this post I haven't really touched on who said what but one of the questions was specifically directed at Marjorie Liu asking her about her work both as a romance author and as a writer for Marvel comics, writing superhero comics and how this transition had shaped her work on comics. She talked about changing from a predominantly female environment to a much more masculine one and she is the only female person of colour writing comics at the moment. There have been some difficulties, as some readers won't read her books on principle but overall she didn't seem too fussed about that. She does still predominantly write about the relationships between the characters and so her romance background has helped her with this aspect.

The final question was about future trends in romance publishing, which both panellists said was a difficult thing to answer. For example, no one could have foreseen the success of 50 Shades but it was uber successful and is generating any number of similar styled books. It was more a question of right book in the right place at the right time. Also, trends are cyclical. A while ago there was very little contemporary romance doing very well and now it is everywhere and there might be less paranormal, but no particular subgenre ever goes away fully.

Sarah thinks that people are curious about other places so she is looking for romances set in other countries like the rural romances that are doing so well here.  Self publishing will also help as even readers with the most unusual wants in a book will be able to find what they are looking for.

Phew! I need a lay down with a good, steamy romance after all that!

It was a fantastic session that hopefully you can see covered a lot of ground and serious subjects whilst still be a lot of fun! I look forward to next years romance panels at the Melbourne Writers Festival.



Currently Reading

The Garden of Happy Endings by Barbara O'Neal, Tremble by Tobsha Learner, Deranged Marriage by Sushi Das and listening to On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta.

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Melbourne Writers Festival: Enquire Within (Friday)

This weekend was the start of one of my favourite times in Melbourne. Melbourne Writers Festival officially started on Thursday night and continues until next weekend and, for book lovers, there is plenty to see and do.

One year I will go to the keynote addresses, which this year were Boris Johnson and Tavi Gevenson, and I will consider doing some of the Melbourne walks or even some of the workshops, but for this year my focus is on attending some of the fantastic sessions that are available to festival goers (it was unintentional that there were so many authors named Sarah in my choices). I am going to seven sessions, with most of those being this weekend. Today I will tell you about the sessions I attended on Friday and then at some point in the next week I will post about my sessions on Saturday, today and next weekend.

My first session of this year's festival was located at the auditorium at the National Gallery of Victoria Art Galley (NGV) and it was a perfect venue to host Sarah Dunant, author of books like The Birth of Venus and her latest book Blood and Bloody, and Carl Villis, paintings conservator at the NGV talking about Lucrezia Borgia and Italian Art.

The session started with Sarah Dunant talking about Lucrezia Borgia, about how the Borgia name has been slandered through history and how if you look past the gossip at what evidence there truly is about her life, you will see a picture of a very different woman than that we usually equate with her name. As part of her talk she showed a picture of a very young Lucrezia Borgia which until recently was thought to be the only known image of her in a painting.

Dunant talked us through how she first became interested in writing about Lucrezia Borgia. Her first three novels, during which she wanted to answer the question of what it would have been like to be woman in the Renaissance, had taken her on a journey from Florence (The Birth of Venus) to Venice (In the Company of the Courtesan) and then to Ferrara. It was at this point that I realised that I had completely missed reading her novel Sacred Hearts. Whilst researching in Ferrara, she came across a tomb slab dedicated to Lucrezia Borgia and praising her piety. Knowing that the woman had ended her life in a convent and was generally considered by her contemporaries (not her enemies) to be both beautiful and pious, how was it that her name is synonymous with poison, murder and incest 500 years later.

In giving us some background to the Borgia family, Dunant explained part of the reason for the level of vitriol against the Borgia family is that they were outsiders, a Spanish family that was trying to infiltrate a world that is dominated by powerful Italian clans. When Rodrigo Borgia was made pope, he was ambitious, determined and had four marriageable children which he was happy to use to build alliances with these families, including 12 year old Lucrezia who is married into the Sforza family. It is when that alliance is no longer necessary and the pope needs to marry Lucrezia into another family that the incest story starts after an annulment is granted on the grounds of impotence, something that the husband vehemently denies. A comment made by a man scorned soon wings it's ways all through the courts of Europe and it takes very little time for the story of Lucrezia being a whore and in incestuous relationships with her father and brother makes it into common usage. Mud sticks.

Sarah Dunant

A second marriage follows, once again for political reasons,  in which Lucrezia gives every appearance of being happy, but once again political alliances shift and her family wants Lucrezia to be married elsewhere, but she fights it. Given that she will not give up the marriage, her husband is murdered, leaving the still young woman to marry again, this time into the court at Ferrara.

Lest it sounds as though Dunant is a Borgia fan through and through, she does make it clear that there is no doubt that Rodrigo is an unashamed womaniser, comparing him to former Italian prime minister Sylvio Berlusconi during the question and answer section of the presentation, and that Cesare was pretty much a sociopath, but that the evidence just doesn't add up to support Lucrezia's vile reputation.

The second part of the session was focused on a painting that is housed at the NGV (click on the link to see the painting) which was for many years the subject of much speculation around who painted it, when it was painted and who the sitter was including whether they were female or male After many years of painstaking research and analysis, Carl Villis has been able to identify exactly who the painter was, and more importantly for the purposes of this talk, that the sitter was in fact Lucrezia Borgia.

Villis talked us through the evidence that he has found to suggest that the painting was done by Dossi Dossi, court painter only at the court of Ferrara during the years that Lucrezia was Duchess, including the type of preparation he used on the canvas, and the shape of the painting which is very unusual for that time in art history. In addition, there were the clues in the painting itself - the hairstyle which identifies the sitter as female, the dagger which seems to be representative of the Roman story of Lucrezia, the myrtle bushes in the background which are symbolic of virtue and beauty as well as the inscription on the painting.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Villis' talk was when he talked about the facial recognition technology that was undertaken by Victoria Police to compare the painting to a bronze medal which was cast for her second wedding. By comparing various points in the faces on the painting and the medal, the evidence confirmed that there was a very high probability that the two faces were portraying the same person. Fascinating, fascinating stuff! Whilst I wouldn't normally buy a non fiction book on the identification of a painting, the presentation was so interesting I will most likely be keeping an eye out for Carl Villis' book on this painting when it comes out.

During the question and answer section that followed, there were correlations made between the bad PR or spin that the Borgias received and the idea of modern celebrity where we love someone until we don't any more and how it is difficult to rehabilitate a personality once the mud slinging starts, about the Borgias TV series (which Dunant isn't a fan of), about how authors have to make a psychological decision on a character based on the evidence they have available and more. I seriously could have listened to these two speak for another hour quite easily and there was so much more content in what they did say that I haven't even touched on yet in this post!

Of course, after hearing this absolutely fascinating talk I had to go and look at the painting for myself, housed in a part of the gallery that I didn't previously know existed even though I have visited the building many times before.

Sarah Wendell

The next session I attended was Digital Women, which featured Jane Caro and Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches Trashy Books. Whilst this was a very different topic from the session I have recounted above, it was again very interesting, focusing on the power of digital women specifically as it relates to women and how it gives women a voice.

Part of the reason that the digital world is so empowering for women in particular is that it removes the gatekeepers that are still present in many traditional media environments whereas digitally women, and other outsiders, can directly access, participate and influence the conversation. Jane Caro gave examples of appearing on panel discussions where there are so often a token woman, but very unusual to have more than one. Statistics reveal that once there is more than about 30% women representation then the males begin to feel quite nervous.

Sarah Wendell was able to talk about the idea of shaming by relating it to the offline experience of many romance readers who are told that they shouldn't read romance, that there is something to be ashamed off or hidden, mainly because it relates to emotions, relationships and, yes, sex. What the online experience for romance readers, who have long been early adopters of social media tools, is that once a voice and community becomes strong is that shame is able to bounce back, not least of which is because the individual reader is no longer alone, and they know this. She also talked about how, for people outside of the romance community, writing the two books that provide commentary on romance gave the Smart Bitches more legitimacy but to those within the community they were just an added bonus.

It was interesting to hear of examples of when social media shows the force it has become. Jane Caro has recently compiled a book called Destroying the Joint which came about from the furore late last year when a radio shock jock here basically said that putting women into positions of power in Australia was basically "destroying the joint". The backlash on social media was pretty much immediate and led to boycotting of the advertisers on the radio program. It was also a time which proved that when both men and women talk about something being unacceptable then it is enormously powerful.

Jane Caro

The conversation then moved onto the power of social media to reach other people with a common interest and often that can be quite subversive. As an example the panel talked about the It Gets Better Youtube campaign that reached out to young gay people who were feeling suicidal about being outsiders. Because the message was on social media and so could be received without being filtered through school teachers or parents who might have made their own moral judgements against homosexuality and therefore blocked that kind of emotional reinforcement that the young person required.

During the question and answer section of the session topics that were touched on included things like how to make money in the digital world as well as the more negative aspects of being active online, including the dramas which envelop different parts of the blogosphere on a semi regular basis. In response, Jane Caro talked about the fact that whether it be online or not, people don't often attack those that have more power than themselves, it is usually people who are their equals or lessers who they feel threatened by and therefore need to attack. In order to stop the dramas,  people need to feel more confident within themselves so that they are not threatened. One thing that I found interesting was that both Jane and Sarah talked about the need to engage with people who have different opinions (not trolls who shouldn't be engaged with) but not because you are necessarily trying to change the other person's mind but mainly because other people will be watching and listening who could benefit or be influenced. We should also remember that women are not an amorphous lump with only one thing to say, but many individual voices.

Stay tune for my recap of Saturday's session which includes more from Sarah Dunant, another Sarah (this time Sarah Turnbull) and more.


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How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid

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