Ahoy there, me hearties!
Tis me, your fearless blogger Megan, blogging live from The People’s Choice Awards at The Williamstown Literary Festival.
Well, not technically live. More that I’m writing this on my computer live, now, and I shall upload when I get home – ie where the internet is!
After almost getting lost and walking down a creepy alley-way to find the tavern, I was greeted with the familiar face of Helenka, the festival manager.
I’ve worked with Helenka (at the Melbourne Writers Festival) before and she is just of the nicest, hardworking, knowledgeable people around. Just lovely.
For those that know me from Literary Life, this won’t come as a shock: I immediately grabbed one of the closest seats to the front.
The tavern has such atmosphere: pirate and sea items lined the walls, along with the corrugated iron walls.
The venue is actually pretty fantastic for open mic nights. There was a little stage set up in the corner, with tables all around. It worked really well.
After a few hiccups with people arriving late and a dodgy microphone, and after a lovely introduction from the Prose MC, Jackie (who spoke about writing fragments), Michael from Passionate Tongues got up and introduced the Poetry section.
Ten poets read fourteen poems and although I took pictures of one of my friends (the gorgeous Sam from Little Girl With A Big Pen) I thought it would be slight over-kill to put up twenty-odd photos on this post :p However, the festival took photos of everyone so I can only assume they’ll turn up on the website at some point.
The poems ranged from refugees, cafes, birds, public transport, relationships and cities.
There were some comedic ones and some serious, some performers and some readers but overall they all were fantastic.
The final winner for Poetry was Lily Chan, who spoke about the ultimate poem.
Next up were the Prose writers, who spoke about things such as emails, distance, cheese, rats and self-harm.
The final winner for the Prose was Matthew Lang who spoke about cheese and raisins.
Over all, what a brilliant night!
You definitely missed out if you didn’t come!!
Now, for some pics!
At the end, Jackie (the prose host) told us a story using a Japanese story-box (above) (and for the life of me I can't remember what it's called!!). We heard The Princess and the Pea and what a great story-teller!
(And I must apologise - the internet is over the limit and I left my computer on all nigtht to load all the photos! Eekk!)
