A FEAST OF FESTIVALS
Writers' festival season is well underway wherever you may be in the country with the inaugural Canberra Writers Festival on this weekend (canberrawritersfestival.com.au) and Melbourne Writers Festival (mwf.org.au) sprawling over this weekend and next. Closer to home, Sydney Jewish Writers Festival opens on Saturday evening at Bondi Pavilion, continues all day Sunday at Waverley Library (sjwf.org.au). I will be part of the launch of Rebellious Daughters, an anthology of memoirs by Australian women, along with editors Maria Katsonis and Lee Kofman, and another contributor, Leah Kaminsky, who will also join me with novelist Steven Amsterdam and Rabbi David Freeman in a session called "We Need to Talk about Dying". Other speakers include David Gonski, Arnold Zable, Mireille Juchau and in the children's program Anna and Barbara Feinberg, the mother and daughter who for 20 years have created the popular Tashi books.
The Festival of Dangerous Ideas at Sydney Opera House on September 3-4 (fodi.sydneyoperahouse.com) features talks by speakers ranging from Alexei Sayle to Andrew Bolt on politics, asylum seekers, fishing, the arts, gender, drugs, sport, sex addiction, suicide and many more topics. Events continue through September, if you want a weekend away, from the large Brisbane Writers Festival on September 7-11 (uplit.com.au) to tiny gatherings in beautiful locations – Batemans Bay Writers Festival (batemansbaywritersfestival.com) on September 9-11 and the St Albans Writers Festival on Septembers 16-18 (stalbanswritersfestival.com.au). You'll find some of the same writers on the circuit, from international names such as Lionel Shriver and Yann Martel to locals Meg and Tom Keneally, Rod Jones, Nick Earls, Suzanne Leal, George Megalogenis, Tim Fischer and Jane Caro. And each festival has its exclusive surprises.
NO FEAR OF SAILING FOR JONG
You might wonder what it's like to travel with feminist Erica Jong, who made her name with the 1973 erotic novel Fear of Flying. You can find out at the Ubud Writers Festival, which has just released its program for October 26-30. Jong's bestseller was more about changing attitudes to sex than flying, coining the term "zipless f---", though it opened with 117 psychoanalysts on a flight to Vienna and a narrator fearful of hijacking. The entertaining Jong, whose latest book is Fear of Dying, will be among 160 writers in Ubud. She will also join 10 guests on a six-day post-festival cruise from Flores to Komodo, along with festival director and cook Janet DeNeefe. Having taken this cruise in its first year with Indian writer Amitav Ghosh and his American wife Deborah Baker, I recommend its combination of sightseeing, cooking, dining and discussion of books. See ubudwritersfestival.com and seatrekbali.com.
SUPPORT INDIGENOUS LITERACY
Singers Justine Clarke, Josh Pyke and Deborah Cheetham, and writers Andy Griffiths, Richard Flanagan and Alison Lester will join school children from remote communities to celebrate Indigenous Literacy Day at the Sydney Opera House on September 7. Clarke and Pyke will perform a new song, Words Make the World Go Around. Visiting children from Tjuntjuntjara, Mt Margaret and Menzies schools will read their stories from The Goanna Was Hungry, a book they have written and illustrated with Ann James and Sally Morgan. All children can take part in The Great Book Swap at the Opera House or at their schools by taking along a book and a gold coin in support of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, which has provided 150,000 free books to communities across Australia. See ilf.org.au and greatbookswap.org.au to register.
