A Small Constellation of Storytellers
Written by Louise Evans
My first day back as a writer for Morph magazine finds me at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, taking on the task of reviewing some of the Saturday programme. It’s a beautiful autumn morn, slightly marred by the looming and uncharismatic Aotea Centre, where the bulk of the festival takes place. It’s certainly buzzing, though in a low hum sort of way, with lots of interesting and intellectual looking folk striding with purpose up the stairs. I follow suit, with the air of self-inflated authority one has when in possession of a press lanyard.
I start at The Publishing Panel. We are stuffed in a badly spaced room with the air conditioning set on ‘Antarctica’. People are sitting on their hands and hunching shoulders, whilst at the same time trying to get a good look at all the famed publishers. The panel begins on a highly optimistic note, with each publishing representative eager to stress that in this rapidly changing and technologically hungry world there is still a place for the humble book. Nikki Christer (Random House Australia), Alvina Ling (Little, Brown USA), Tom Mayer (W.W. Norton USA), and Alexis Washam (Random House USA) make up the distinguished guests, all keen to convince us of why we shouldn’t throw in the publishers’ towels just yet.
They make many valid points in favour along the way, such as the level of editing, the ability to market to appropriate readerships, and providing the manpower to protect authors’ rights . By the same token it’s clear that much more is expected of authors these days - no longer permitted to sit in a country cabin and stump up with a winning novel every 10 years - to enter into a mutually beneficial publisher/writer relationship. The writer is expected to be well connected to their readers, eager to promote themselves, and basically wear many hats, simultaneously, whilst writing, looking and sounding fabulous.
Tom informs us that we make our own luck, using the example of Emily Perkins who apparently is a one-woman tornado of productivity and versatility. The famed New Zealand number 8 wire philosophy would be seen to be our advantage.
By now the simmering tension of a room full of writers desperate to get published has become too much and a woman stands up and demands that the panel read her manuscript (‘It’s just so hard to break through the publishing barrier!’). Certain members of the audience look envious at her brazen confidence, then realise there may be hope for them yet when she says it is a book on both reality TV and holocaust survivors. Tom Mayer, cornered on stage, can’t make any excuse not to read it.
Next is the Emerging Writers, presented by Iain Sharp, who introduces himself as a submerging writer. Buoyed by the titter of appreciation, he proceeds to look gleefully happy with himself for the rest of the session.
Despite the initial diversion, the three writers rise above it all and are in fact a brilliantly chosen selection, each with an assured tone and exemplary ideas. As the festival blurb says, it’s always a tonic to hear fresh voices.
Hamish Clayton begins with a piece taken from his lyrical debut novel Wulf (following the cryptic 10th century poem of the same name which he sets in 1830s New Zealand). The publication of Wulf has had readers heralding Clayton as a NZ literary wonderboy, and it’s easy to see from his intensely coloured excerpt that conveys a lush and terrifying tension, that would hold its own against The Heart of Darkness.
Craig Cliff, a public servant who moonlights as a bloody good writer at night, has nailed the small town character vernacular with a reading from his short story collection A Man Melting. The tale is set in a fictional trout-fishing town, with hilarious situational comedy and dialogue. He has a dogged knack for making the intricacies of the everyday seem intensely fascinating and mirth-ridden.
Tina Makereti reads from her collection Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa, with ‘Topknot’ about a teenage pregnancy that mirrors the story of Maui's birth. The blend of mythology and teenage denial makes for a haunting tale. (If one did not know the legend of Maui, it would be equally meaningful and moving.) The language is wistful and full of the sort of angst that makes you want to go give someone a hug.
The audience, well fed on these tasty morsels, unabashed in the presence of these accessible writers - who say such things as ‘I write because I can’t imagine not writing’, and ‘write first, research later’ – ask all sorts of questions that might seem silly otherwise.
Meeting the authors at the book signing, Craig informs me his book is worth more on Trademe with his signature on it but not my name.
The Divided Protagonist workshop is well populated, with keen ‘students’ well equipped with journals, pens, a vast array of spectacles and beady eyes behind them.
David Vann leads an impassioned analysis of what makes a great protagonist, using examples from stories by William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Vladimir Nabokov. It’s a concept close to his heart, being the prolific writer and teacher he is. However, he doesn’t always stick to the task at hand, and we rode a fabulous tide of fascinating tangents, grammatical tips, name-dropping and personal anecdotes.
The session could have easily gone on for another hour, but nonetheless it proved invaluable for emphasising how important the reader/writer relationship is in the process of writing, of how we behave, how we seek and respond to patterns and how to incorporate this into writing and the creation of protagonist.
David finishes by telling us to just forget everything he has said and to just write the very best that we can, which many in the group looked visibly relieved by.
I’m finished up for the day - and emerge in the the fading daylight with a head full of words and ideas. I’m flanked by dozens of others from the workshop, a small constellation of storytellers, bustling out into the evening, preoccupied and itching to get back to their writing.
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