Words The we weave
The Manawatu Writers’ Festival will bring together a lineup of writers, workshops, talks and celebrations of the written word. Carly Thomas talked to those involved about why words matter.
The act of writing is often a solitary one. Done at the dining room table, a cluttered but quiet corner, a park bench, an office or a book-lined study. Nurtured by cups of tea, coffee, biscuit crumbs on the keyboard and maybe the company of a cat, words are lined up.
And at the end, after poured-out thoughts, pored-over scribbles, painful moments and times of pure joy, a finished something remains. A novel, poem, a history, an essay, a communication of some sort. And that solitary act, with any luck, finds the warm company of readers.
And it’s important. As organiser of the Manawatu Writers’ Festival Rachel Dore says, writing and reading help to identify commonalities in our human experience.
‘‘Write to articulate experiences, ideas and emotions. While journalling stores your responses to life and hidden thoughts, that writing may become part of tomorrow’s social history. A lot of people tell me they have stories in their heads. I say, don’t leave them there – write.’’
Dore has put together a five-day line-up of talks, workshops and celebrations from writers of many genres.
Plenty of bases are covered – history writing, interviewing techniques, writing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, memoirs. There’s workshops on printmaking, mining emotion for a story, writing dialogue and what to do when writer’s block sideswipes you. Authors are coming from far and wide: Owen Marshall, David Hill, Rachel Mcalpine, Sue Mccauley, Glyn Harper, Thom Conroy and many more. The timetable is jam-packed and Dore says it will be great for Feilding.
‘‘Hopefully, it will bring a buzz to the place, inject a bit of life and discussion.’’
The idea for the festival came after a long and vigorous discussion at the writers’ group Dore is involved in. They were talking
about truth in writing and, on the drive home, Dore got to thinking.
‘‘By the time I got to the farm gate I knew that I wanted to have a writers’ festival here. One thing led to another and it has been a merry dance, but here we are.’’
It’s an age-old form of communication and for people that do it, writing is a compulsion that is altogether necessary. Owen Marshall is a renowned New Zealand writer and to him, a man who has written extensively over the years, ‘‘writing and reading allow us access to a community much wider than the one we live in’’.
‘‘A community not limited by time and place, not confined to our own experience.’’
Marshall will be holding a seminar on the importance of characterisation in fiction writing and in a similar thread, novelist and teacher Thom Conroy will be taking a workshop on using emotions and experiences as a way into fiction writing.
Conroy says books offer an escape.
‘‘The world is a confronting, constraining, vexing and sometimes downright feral place. Sanity can come down to one’s ability to step outside the confines of day-to-day reality and wine only goes so far. Sometimes, taking an exodus from the tribulations of the grind is not an indulgence, it’s a medical requirement.’’
Chris Gallavin will bring his grassroots brand of poetry, along with Jono Corfe, Glen Colquhoun, Janet Newman, Catherine