You’re Program Director of Willy Lit Fest – coming up this weekend, 14–16 June! What does the job entail?

The ‘job’ is bringing together readers and writers for a weekend of conversation, ideas and reading for pleasure in June. The glamorous parts include reading manuscripts pre-publication, and the honour of launching careers and new books into the world. The reality is 300 emails a week, excel spreadsheets and that blur of weekend into working from home time. It’s the minutiae of operations and remembering 100+ people’s names. It’s the joy of abundance in literature, and getting to share the books I love with others that I hope will love them just as much. 

Can you tell us a bit about how writers’ festivals and publishing houses work together? What’s your relationship with Black Inc.?

Writers’ festivals are an opportunity for authors to find new readers (and vice versa) so publishers are keen to have their writers involved and visible. It means a presence in the festival bookstore, an entire new channel of marketing… The nuts and bolts involve sitting down with a publicist from each house for a ‘pitch meeting’ where the Programmer hears about each book recently published or set to be published in a given time, and what that author could potentially bring to the festival. You are presented with too much information that you eventually need to condense. 

Can I take this opportunity to give a shout out to publicists? (Hi Kate Nash!) They are the hardest working staff members in a publishing house – they are heroes. I am sure most festivals in Australia happen because publicists are the most responsive, organised and diligent people in the industry. 

What role do you think writers’ festivals play in the literary community?

Reading and writing are experiences of art that you often have in isolation. Writing is notoriously solitary, and reading is often associated with solitude. But, as with all forms of art, we read for empathy and understanding and connection. A writers’ festival is a physical manifestation of this idea. A coming together, a forming of community. They exist so readers know they’re not alone.  

We’re super excited to see so many Black Inc. authors in attendance at Willy Lit Festival this weekend – including Robert Skinner, Dennis Glover, Alice Pung and debut authors Ariane Beeston and Khin Myint. Are there any sessions at this year’s festival that you’re especially keen to see?

I’m thrilled Ariane and Khin are joining us from interstate – both have written such brave and candid memoirs. How they have both managed heavy topics with deftness and lightness is impressive, and anyone in their sessions will leave inspired. I’m sure of it. 

I, personally, am excited about the swimming salon. There’s nothing else like it and it is uniquely Williamstown. Four writers will read on the theme of swimming: Emily Gale, Nova Weetman, Lian Low and Katherine Brabon – and then we will brace ourselves for a dip in the bay. The water is just dipping below 13 degrees Celsius. It will be an invigorating way to begin Sunday of the festival. We also have a 5m-long constellation whale from the pages of Naomi Woodward’s Moon Sailors swimming around the festival on Sunday morning. I’m prepared to be enchanted.  

There are so many brilliant writers and thinkers out there – how do you determine the shape of a festival, and what topics to include?

It’s the hardest part of the job, and inevitably there will be writers you want to work with that you don’t have space for. A lot of programming for me is trusting myself as a reader (I will always be reader first, programmer second) and knowing that if I am interested in something, someone else probably will be too. Secondly, it’s constantly reminding myself that people can and should be reading for pleasure. It’s okay to include frivolity at the festival. Joy is a worthy aspiration. 

If you could invite any three people in the world to a dinner party, who would they be and why?

They would all be writers, because sobremesa (the sitting and talking around a table after a meal is finished) is my favourite pastime and writers often provide excellent conversation. They would be: Lucia Berlin (A Manual for Cleaning Women) for her gin cocktails, Caroline O’Donohue for her sentimental garbage and Geetanjali Shree (Tomb of Sand) for the depth of her storytelling. Shree won the international Booker last year and would sit at the head of the table to regale us. 

My housemates and the girls I run Dinner Party Press with would also be there – because even though that’s more than three, I can’t imagine a fabulous dinner party without my favourite people sat around that table.

Read the previous instalment of Behind the Book, a Q&A with author Robert Skinner. 

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