Old accommodation house, location unknown, date unknown but probably in the 1930s to 1950s.
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So I missed WORD Christchurch Autumn Season but just up the drag from Cape Town, in the beautiful Western Cape lies Franschoek, where every year (in May) the Franschoek Literary Festival (FLF) takes place. I was curious to see how Africa festivates*, so my daughter and I offloaded the kids and headed into the mountains.
What is it about festivals that I love? Is it the books, the authors, the coffee, the vibe? In fact a better question might be: What’s not to love? The event that we booked for at FLF was entitled On Being A Book Club Writer, with three world renowned authors: Joanne Harris (of Chocolat fame), Lesley Pearse (books like Belle and Tara) and Sophie Hannah (murder mystery writer of books like Closed Casket). The event was chaired by an ebullient Mohale Mashigo who thoroughly enjoyed herself, and worked the festival miracle of getting participants to interact with one another.
Here’s a selection of some gems that I gleaned:
I’ve never belonged to a book group, but I am glad they exist. Basically I am a storyteller – I think everything I write is rubbish until I’m told otherwise. My most bizarre reader interaction came from a young Korean man who proposed marriage. To this day I think he mistakenly thought the beauty selected for the cover of the book was me! All my writing is kept in my head, I make no notes, I seem to have no control over my characters. If I get Alzheimers, that will be it. You’ll be on your own!
I’ve attended many book clubs and spoken at quite a few of them. I love it when people come to blows over my writing. That coupled with wine and pizza, what’s not to love? It certainly feels to me that Book Club members care about books and reading. But I don’t write for book club members, I write for me. I too have very little control over my characters, I am more attracted to the Voodoo of writing, the making of little marks on the page. I once got a Valentine card from a Japanese man made from his hair – that’s the weirdest correspondence I have had. I firmly believe that you can’t express anything in writing unless you have experienced that feeling (OK so you can’t murder everyone, but you must have felt murderous at some point in order to write about it).
I did belong to a dysfunctional Book Club once, it had nine members, all women. Two of them spoke constantly, the other seven never spoke at all. I walked out one day saying I was off to fetch Chinese takeaway and I never returned. I don’t have a single weirdest correspondent. Bizarre correspondence is so regular, weirdness is so normal. I keep very detailed notes. I adore buying beautiful little notebooks. You might as well work in a canteen if you don’t like writing in a notebook! I work on a battered laptop, for at least a year the letter “p” didn’t work and I had to cut and paste it. I was writing a Poirot novel at the time!
This was my first festival coverage out of New Zealand. I loved it just as much as all the home fests I have covered. When I am old and very, very rich (one of those things has yet to happen!), I intend travelling the world from festival to festival … by train.
Sawubona from Africa!
* You are allowed to create new words when you blog about festivals!
National Youth Week 2017 is 26 May – 4 June 2017 and this year’s theme is “Our voices count, count our voices”.
Linwood College Showcase Concert – Part of New Zealand Music Month
Thursday 25 May 5pm to 7pm
Linwood Library at Eastgate
This concert will feature cultural groups, the Linwood College jazz band, some rock bands and acoustic solos and duos.
Youth Week FIFA 17 PS4 Gaming Tournament at Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre
Saturday 27 May 11am to 4pm
Have you got what it takes to become the Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre champion? Sign up to win a prize voucher, trophy and eternal bragging rights! Free to enter, just ask a librarian in the library at Te Hāpua: Halswell Centre. Open for ages 10-16.
Places are limited so be sure to sign up in advance.
Magic: the Gathering
Saturday 3 June 1pm to 4pm
Bring your Magic: The Gathering decks to Shirley Library! Come along to play, swap cards or hang out. Snacks provided! Ages 8 – 18 (Magic: the Gathering is on the first Saturday every month)
Christchurch City Libraries also works in schools, intermediate and high schools, with youth on exciting programmes like Photoshop and film-making. Explore what’s on offer at our Learning Centres.
Spider senses were tingling, Avengers were assembling and the flame was on at Linwood recently. Linwood Library at Eastgate put the ‘Kapow” into International Free Comic Book Day on Saturday 6 May with a Graphic Novel & Comic drawing workshop. With skills in Manga, digital software — and as published graphic novelists —presenters Elijah Lopez, Jed Uy, and Ryan Green shared some of the basic tips and tricks to their craft, as well demonstrating how the process works in practice.
The 30 attendees then had time to put the new skills into practice, with the assistance from the presenters. Based on the enthusiastic conversations and number of connections being made, ‘By Odins beard’ this Saturday event was an occasion where all who entered triumphed.
And …on Friday the 28 of April, Fendalton Library hosted a Flash Fiction writing event for young adults, aged 10-18. Students learned how to write short standalone stories with emotional punch.
Activities were light and fun with chocolate rewards for awesome answers to
our questions. We encouraged creative thinking by examining emotive words
and brainstorming characters, situations and plots that might evoke the
chosen emotions. Students were welcome to share or not as they wished. At
the end of the session, students had the opportunity to simply write, shaping
their ideas into the beginning of a story. Everyone enjoyed the workshop and said they had learned something new.
“Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is.” (Sass: know, be aware of; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)
After having spent a few weeks Time Travelling this month, you can be sure I kept my towel handy.
Towel Day, 25th May, is a day to Celebrate the life of Douglas Adams, who left us for the Long Dark Teatime of the Soul on 11 May 2001. I hoped he was just spending a year dead for tax reasons.
Adams is the inspired writer of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, first broadcast by the BBC Radio in 1978. A cult following was inspired by the series and its characters, Ford Prefect, Arthur Dent, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian, Marvin the paranoid Android and Slartibartfast.
Adams’ inventive use of language, his imagination and humour have immortalised his writing. Using fantasy as a vehicle, Adams explores very human issues such as shyness, meeting women, rain, politics and the demolishing of houses to build motorways – or hyperspace byways.
Douglas Adams also penned three episodes of Dr Who (The Pirate Planet (1978), Destiny of the Daleks (1979) and City of Death (with Graham Williams, 1979); The Salmon of Doubt, the Dirk Gently series, and created the game Starship Titanic, based on a book he wrote with Terry Jones (Monty Python).
I love English wit. Its as stinging as English rain…or indeed Christchurch rain.
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