Four Days in Tinsel Town

Sydney writers are notoriously slack during any hot summer. Sydney audiences are equally lackadaisical. Except, it seems, when it comes to fronting authors on their working-holidays, if we can judge by the numbers who turned up to this year’s Writers sessions at the Sydney Festival. For each of the eight sessions of ‘The View from Tinsel Town’, held in the grandeur of the Sydney Town Hall (January 16 to 19), was enjoyed by capacity audiences. As Margaret Jones commented in the Sydney Morning Herald: ‘It would have been a sell-out if it hadn’t been free.’ The success of last year’s inaugural Tinsel Town event prompted this year’s enlargement of proceedings, along with a number of promotional lures from the NSW chapter of the National Book Council, keen on securing a yearly event at the political centre of old Sydney town. Ken Done’s vision of Sydney - the Harbour Bridge, Opera House and Luna Park, all squeezed into a ‘snowie’ – on all promotional items certainly tagged the event as bright and witty. Clearly, this would be no ordinary literary conference in the academic vein. As coordinator I deliberately went about engaging writers who were prepared to create new work, not merely read something from the backblocks of their memory. There’s a place for that, but it just might be the pub. Using the small funding available from the Literature Board, the interest shown in consolidating the event by the Sydney Festival Committee, and the success of 1985, eight sessions of thrills and spills resulted. The four weekday sessions were aimed at a more specialist audience, who could enjoy the elegance of the Town Hall Vestibule in comfort. Session one offered ‘Authors Rights & Wrongs’, and was chaired by Ken Methold, the energetic chairman of the Society of Authors. Ken demonstrated his skills as a chairperson, contexting the speakers, parrying questions and delivering well-timed plugs for ASA publications and other literary activities. Barbara Jefferis spoke about the pitfalls and loopholes of the author’s contract, that minefield for the innocent writer. Wendy Bacon from the National Times, opened to a lukewarm reception and closed to rousing applause in what was a highlight of Tinsel Town – her discussion of the defamation laws. Moving from general principles to several very telling particulars, she showed how our interpretation of these laws disadvantage all but the rich and powerful, forcing writers like Wendy to twist their prose into ever more contorted styles. Vincent Serventy closed the session, ranging over options for increasing the sales of Australian books and the perils of the non&shy;fiction author, who might even have whole slabs of their work quoted in Hansard – but can never expect any payment. The second session, ‘The Return of the Thriller’, was exactly that, when two extremes from the genre – Jan McKemmish (A Gap in the Records) and Lance Peters (The Dirty Half Mile) sparred. Referee Andrew Saw, used to interviewing political heavyweights like Tom Domican, chaired the panel, which included the mysterious non&shy;appearance of David Hickie who was to speak about real crime in happy New South Wales. No doubt, like Frank Nugan, he will one day resurface to horror and applause. Friday morning began with the panel focusing on multicultural concerns. Trevor Shearston, a natural storyteller, revelled in tales from New Guinea, the basis for his latest novel White Lies. Ron Blair delivered a new story set in Italy, and Angelo Loukakis, in a belligerent good humour, argued that such concerns were less important than the writing itself. This was chaired by Ed Campion, who rarely had to call on divine intervention to check an interested audience.

Tom Thompson

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