WLF: Day One Wrap

Evening evening!

Today was day one of the main program!

First up for me was Margaret Clark.

I was pretty excited to see her.

Okay, very excited. I grew up on her! The horror, the non-fiction, the modelling series - everything.

I attempted to arrive early but didn't, thanks to one cancelled train then the following one being late (love ya, Metro) but I still managed to secure a front-row seat :D

You could tell she'd done this once or twice before: she was prepared like no-one's business.

She had these large boards with all her book covers which was just like going down memory lane for me!

She spoke about writing and how she got started, and where her ideas come from.

She ended on reading part of her regular newspaper column which was about her granddaughter's third birthday party, and was so funny!

After, I bought myself a sausage and headed out into the sun to sit and read.

So lovely! I swear, half the fun of literary festivals is sitting around, enjoying the atmosphere of them.

I have to tell you, seeing Corrinne Grant, Cal Wilson and Tracy Bartram was the highlight of the day.

The three of them were hilarious.

I always used to listen to Tracy (and Matt!) on Fox and remember clearly when she announced she was quitting - I was quite upset!

They spoke about writing - both comedy and Corrinne's memoir, and Tracy's soon-to-be-released book.

Corrinne said she generally writes between 8am-2/3pm whereas Cal works around her children and writes in quick bursts during naps.

All spoke about performing, improv and told hilarious anecdotes.

Corrinne, Tracy, Cal

At the end, one of the founders of the festival came up to thank them and joked that she was sure we could have sit there all day and listed to them talk - I know I could have!

Next up, I went to a writing workshop with Sofie Laguna.

I was easily the oldest person there (despite the program saying it was suitable for people up to 25) and Sofie commented that it was a bit odd running a writing workshops for teens considering she doesn't write for that age group (she writes picture books, MG and has one adult novel).

We worked on a character together as a group, each calling out different things like gender, age, features etc.

Our character - Laura, 17 - turned out to be pretty dark with a sexually abusive father, among other things.

Sofie was laughing and asking how the group knew about such dark stuff (majority of the group were around fourteen or so) and they immediately replied with 'television' 'movies' 'video games'.

She then lead us through writing our own characters and then some people read them out.

The last session I went to was a workshop on blogging with Literary Minded's Angela Meyer.

Helenka (festival manager) commented on the post-modernism of the official blogger attending a blogging workshop to only go home and blog about it :p

So here I am, blogging about it!!

Angela, much like Margaret, is obviously a seasoned pro: she had notes covering every little bit of blogging from why to blog, how to set it up, platforms to use, social networking, how to attract readers etc.

The woman opposite me took pages of notes as did many people.

It was interesting listening to her talk about the genesis of Literary Minded and how she got started out - she also set up a fake blog and talked about the real roots of them.

Over all: jam-packed excellent day!!

Who's going tomorrow?