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.

Jason Porter in Conversation with Sheridan Stewart (ABC Radio) Image by Jeff

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.

The Wimmera Red Dessert

When the sun disappears into the morning sky

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

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.

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 50^th 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