WRITE MINDS
There will be a top line-up of authors, journalists and musicians when the third Tamar Valley Writers Festival kicks off next week
This year’s Tamar Valley Writers Festival will focus on Tasmania’s ability to reach beyond its borders to influence people
Words have the power to change all kinds of things, even people’s minds, something notoriously difficult to alter. And this year’s Tamar Valley Writers Festival will focus on all the ways Tasmania is able to reach well beyond its borders to influence people and issues with the words written from within this island state.
In just a few years, the Tamar Valley Writers Festival has built quite a reputation for itself, with attendances between 1500 and 1700 people for each festival and boasting some of the top literary talent from Tasmania and the rest of the country among its guests.
Not too bad for a relatively young festival, held every two years at the bottom end of the country and three hours from the nearest capital city.
After six years and two successful festivals, the format is getting a shake-up for this year’s third festival. Not only is it being moved from March to September, it is shifting locations from Beaconsfield to the nearby Swiss-inspired village of Grindelwald. “This year we are part of the Spring into the Tamar campaign, which incorporates other events like the Junction Arts Festival, Farmgate Festival and Blooming Tasmania,” Tamar Valley Writers Festival president Mary Machen says. “It’s all about visiting the valley in the spring and showing what a great time of year it is for festivals in the north of the state.
“The previous two festivals have been held at Beaconsfield, but this year we wanted to create a real festival hub so that everything could be happening within one area and Grindelwald is such a great location for that, and will keep everyone central to create a great vibe.”
What has not changed is the festival’s dedication to presenting a top line-up of writers to host its variety of workshops, masterclasses and panel discussions over the course of three days, with a program designed to inspire and educate everyone from writers to readers and anyone else in between.
“We always aim for a 50/50 balance of Tasmanian and mainland writers, and we have writers coming from as far afield as Queensland and Western Australia,” Machen says. “And I think it’s great to be able to hold something like this just outside of Launceston, when so much centres around Hobart. I don’t see why Tasmania needs to be seen as being in all these different segments, anyway, I think ‘regional’ Tasmania is a bit of a myth — we’re all just Tasmanians at heart.”
This year’s line-up of 60 guest speakers includes Tasmanian rock musician Monique Brumby, Tasmanian writers Stephanie
Parkyn, Rachael Treasure, Adam Page, Katherine Johnson and Finegan Kruckemeyer, broadcasters Helen Shield and Belinda King, television scriptwriter Vicki Madden, and psychologist and author Steve Biddulph, along with interstate guests such as actor and comedian Glynn Nicholas, Melbourne barrister Julian Burnside, and novelist Jessie Cole.
This year’s theme is “Tasmania on the global page”, which Machen says encourages attendees to look at the ways writers, even in a place as small as Tasmania, can change the world.
“When you look at the diversity of our writers in this festival, a lot of their writing resonates so much more broadly than just in their home state. Island creativity tends to be a microcosm of the thought processes from around the rest of the nation.”
Monique Brumby is a passionate believer in the transformative power of words and language and especially Tasmania’s inimitable tendency to inspire those who live here.
Born in Tasmania, Brumby moved from Hobart to Melbourne 23 years ago to pursue a career in music. Having returned to Hobart just six months ago, the ARIA award-winning musicianhas already noticed that special influence of the place spurring her on to new ideas and a better flow of creativity.
“It has been a wonderful transition for me, I always loved living in Hobart, and there is so much great creativity here, so many innovative people and inspiring community groups. It does amazing things for my creativity, just being here, I have always written well here.
“The main reason I moved back is for my family and also for my musical career, and it is so great to be able to say that, to be an artist moving BACK to Tassie because the scene is so thriving now.”
Brumby will give a masterclass at the festival called Mortal Coil Levitation, aimed at helping writers find ways to overcome those dreaded blocks and free their minds to become better writers. “It is about leaving everyday language behind, who you think you are in the world, leave it all at the door and become everything you want to be for an hour and a half,” she says.
“I’ll be talking about a way to transcend that physical form and get out of your own way in writing, both literally and figuratively. Some of the biggest blocks to being able to write are your mind chatter, and that tendency we have to get in our own way and overthink.
“There will be a bit of meditation, and looking at some great writers from the past, and also that sweeping tranquillity of the Tasmanian landscape and learning to use that as well. It is a process that naturally evolved for me and I’ve spent the last 20 years trying to get back to it.
“By the end of the masterclass I hope people will maybe see themselves as a writer in a different way to the way they did before. It could be revealing and maybe a bit confronting, recognising your weaknesses and moving past them, moving through all the wind and into the stillness to find clarity and hopefully good writing.”
Brumby says she is quite old-school in her creative process. Even in planning how to present the masterclass, she says she is using big paper charts, handwritten notes, and an arsenal of bulldog clips. “It’s just the way I think, and the way I visualise and arrange my thoughts. It might not work for everyone but you have to find what works for you, and this works for me.”
Since moving back to Hobart, Brumby has been involved with audio production and song writing at the University of Tasmania and is freelancing as a music producer from her home studio, and she has even branched out stylistically and written a stage play, More Than Just a Tomboy, which she performed as part of the recent Festival of Voices.
“I haven’t really written anything like that before and both shows sold out and it was incredible for me. I want to work on that a bit more now,” Brumby says.
She says there is nothing wrong with aspiring to create something with broad likability, and nor is there anything wrong with art-for-art’s-sake. “If you have that need to create, you can’t just stop. If I had to stop playing guitar and singing I don’t know what I’d do with myself, so I just keep creating. I’ve been lucky to be able to make a career of my art, but even if I couldn’t I’d still be doing it anyway.”
Former Launceston truck-driver Adam Page did exactly this when, on a whim, he felt compelled to write down the life story of an elderly man he spotted sitting at the supermarket two years ago.
Page had no previous writing experience, nor any particular inclination to be a writer. But he knew he was being inspired to do something new.
“He was this 92-year-old man, he looked lonely, so I just decided to sit and chat to him. It turned out he was a world renowned pathologist from the Netherlands who moved to Australia in 1969 and was Associate Professor of Pathology at Monash University.
“He said to me ‘nobody cares any more, my story will go with me when I die’. And that seemed like a tragedy to me.
“I ended up writing his story down so he could see it and listen to it and just posted it up on Facebook for my friends to read. It all went from there.”
This story, two years ago, was the first in a hugely popular series of pocket biographies called Humans of Launceston, which now has its own Facebook page with some 22,000 followers. Page has written more than 100 of these biographies now, modelled on the style of the famous Humans of New York series, and has focused mostly on the stories of the elderly.
“I have no previous writing experience at all, apart from studying English at school,” Page says. “I was a truck-driving Elvis tribute artist. That was my creative outlet, singing a rock’n’roll show every weekend in Launceston.
“But when I started doing Humans of Launceston I realised I have a knack for story. This is just a hobby for me but it turns out I have a bit of a gift for it. I don’t do much to their stories, I just do some editing, put everything in chronological order and make sure it flows nicely. But I let their words tell the story.”
About a dozen of Page’s interviewees have passed away since being featured on the site, and Page’s biographies of some of them were used in eulogies at their funerals.
He discovered such a great love of recording and sharing older people’s stories that he has stopped working as a truck driver and retrained in aged care. He is now a leisure and lifestyle assistant in an aged care centre, where he has found he has a natural affinity for befriending and lifting the spirits of the residents.
“I help organise bus trips, bingo, concerts, I started a choir for people with dementia. I always felt so wasted sitting in a truck – but this last year doing this job is the most wonderful job I’ve ever done.”
He has been approached to write people’s biographies and is now working on compiling his Humans of Launceston series into a book. So as well as being part of a panel at the festival talking about inspirational stories and storytelling, he is hoping to do some networking of his own.
“I’m hoping to learn how to go about publishing a book. So I’m out to learn something, too.”
ABC Landline journalist Pip Courtney also understands the value in just talking to people and listening to their stories – even if it is not the story she thought she was chasing.
Now based in Brisbane, the ex-Tasmanian journalist – and daughter of Michael Courtney, who was editor of the Examiner in Launceston for 16 years – says she is naturally curious and a chatterbox, who can’t help but start conversations everywhere she goes.
But, as they say, every person has a story. And if you want to tell those stories, you need to talk to people. Lots of them.
“When I’m on the road for Landline, I don’t tend to just go back to my hotel room in the evenings, I will go to the pub wherever I am and have a yarn with the locals,” she says. “It’s amazing the stories you find that way and the amazing people you meet.
“Dad was the same. Even when he was watching my brother play cricket on the weekends, he would wander around chatting to people and he would find three stories and then phone through to the newsroom to pass the information on. Just like him, I am a story-hunter. And no matter where I go I always come home with new ones.” Courtney will be speaking on two panels at the festival, on rural stories and on collecting people’s stories, and she says something she has learnt in all her years of journalism is that no matter what issue or industry she is reporting on, the real story is always about the people.
“My job is to find stories and report not so much about agriculture, but about what makes the people tick, why they are innovative or resilient,” she says.
“And our farmers are the best in the world in terms of needing to be innovative and use the best available techniques and technology. That’s one way words and stories can help change society for the better. There is always this image of farmers not being prepared for this drought, this narrative that they are hicks, and I want to push back against that and show how clever and forward-thinking they really are.
“People are often surprised to discover just how involved the process is behind farming various crops and products, and I like being able to share that.”
Even though she grew up in suburban Launceston, Courtney says she was always jealous of her friends and family who lived on farms. She studied agricultural science in Year 12 and later combined her love of farming with a desire to be a journalist like her dad by becoming a rural affairs reporter, starting with Landline in 1993. “My dad was a huge hero to me, I was in awe of how much he loved going in to work every day. He never switched off, even on holidays at the shack he would talk to other people just to hear their stories. And I’m like that, I never switch off. There are stories everywhere, as long as there are people you will never run out of stories, everybody has one to tell.”
Courtney says Australian farmers tend to be incredibly selfdeprecating, uncomfortable with the idea that they are exceptional at what they do, and often try to palm her off to the next property down the road instead. But she says often the most interesting stories are the ones you don’t expect to find and the people who are most reluctant to tell their story are often the most fascinating.
“I make a point of never trying to push people into whatever narrative I had in mind going in. The story can always change at any point and be something even more amazing. And when people are nervous about being interviewed I always remind them that I’m not asking you about MY favourite topic, I’m asking you questions about YOUR life and YOUR business and there is nobody who knows more about your life than you do. You know this stuff better than anyone. That usually helps them relax and feel more confident.”
Many of the events at this year’s Tamar Valley Writers Festival will be staged at the resort, and unlike previous years, all events are ticketed, except the children’s program, which is entirely free. “We have been fortunate until now that a lot of the writers who have appeared have waived their fees, but we believe all artists are professionals and deserve to be paid for their skills,” Machen says. “So this year we are paying all of our guests, which means we need to sell tickets for all the events. And we have been heartened by the early ticket sales to see that people seem to be embracing the idea.”
Tamar Valley Writers Festival, from September 14 to 16, will be held in the state’s north at Grindelwald, on the West Tamar Highway, 20 minutes’ drive from Launceston. Purchase tickets online at tamarvalleywritersfestival.com.au/the-festival/program-tickets/; tickets to Monique Brumby’s event can also be purchased through her ticketing link: moniquebrumby.com