When I heard the South Coast Writers Centre was holding a festival of creative non-fiction at Coledale – just a few stops up the train line from my home in Corrimal – I was interested enough to take a look at the program.
After all, one of Hazel’s signature achievements was establishing a hugely successful line of narrative non-fiction titles for Murdoch Books in the ’90s when they’d previously focused on cooking and lifestyle (and, yes, I redesigned and ran the website for a while).
One “True Story. But Seriously …” session really caught my eye: “True Locals”, focusing on four non-fiction writers who live in our region and have made a name for themselves (amd maybe even a living) as authors. The lineup included Jeff Apter, a writer I admire greatly, including for his bios of Neil Finn, Marc Hunter, The Bee Gees, Jon English, Daniel Johns, various Young brothers, and most recently Lee Gordon – terrific books, all.
Accompanying Jeff on the panel was Saul Griffith, whose work and writing on renewable energy has been enlightening to me (in both an encouraging and despairing sense). I didn’t know he was a Wollongong local. Also on the panel were Erin O’Dwyer, an experienced journalist there to talk about her ghostwriting work on Accessory, by Felicia Djamirze (the subtitle is “Former Miss Australia, Convicted Drug Trafficker, Gangland Girlfriend” – what’s not to like?), and Jeremy Lasek, a Dapto boy whose book We Voted Yes documents the local support for the failed referendum on an indigenous Voice to Parliament (another case of hope and despair).
I brought along my copy of Lee Gordon Presents … in case the opportunity arose to get Jeff to sign it. As it happened, I arrive 15 minutes early, saw Jeff, and introduced myself. We had a great brief chat about his books, his subjects, writing, and the rock scene, before he had to go on stage.
The panel was hosted by ABC broadcaster Melinda James, who kept it moving nicely. Each author got to riff on how their books came about, share some anecdotes about their books’ content and reactions, and they all received a warm reception from a genuinely interested audience.
Jeff did sign my book afterwards, and Festival Artistic Director Caroline Baum invited me to stay for the next session she was hosting called “From Ocean to Mountain”, a two person panel comprising Vicki Hastrich on her biography of American western writer and big game fisherman Zane Grey, and Anthony Sharwood on his bio of Tadeusz Kościuszko, the Polish freedom fighter after whom Australia’s highest mountain is named.
The first thing Caro pointed out about this pair was that, unusually for a festival panel, they had read each other’s books! This gave the whole session a different character: instead of two authors spruiking their own books, they enaged and commented on each other’s books, creating a warm, generous, and engaging dynamic.
And they had plenty to share about their equally interesting subjects, from Grey’s time at Bermagui on the south coast chasing marlin (the Bermagui caravan park is named after him) to Kościuszko’s friendship with Thomas Jefferson and his role in the Polish–Russian War of 1792.
All in all, a few hours well spent in the company of local book lovers and writers, topped by a cup of instant coffee and a couple of iced cupcakes.