Pre-event Inspirations of the Bendigo Writers Festival

Tomorrow it begins, the Bendigo Writers Festival I’ve waited for about a couple months now. I don’t really feel as nervous as I thought I would, I feel more excited and curious as to the many discoveries I'll stumble upon. After attending the class seminars today, I definitely feel more prepared to what I could include in my assessments. However, I don’t see these as assessments but as little mini projects to compliment the various sessions I am interested in attending.

And speaking of sessions, I will be going to ones revolving around the following topics:

- passions

- impact of combining different genre elements

- developing skills as a writer and the opportunities in starting out

- ideas about book writing and the speakers’ persona

What are those sessions called though? I am not saying, I guess you’ll have to find out further along in my blog posts. What I can tell you is that tomorrow I will be attending the ‘Text Marks the Spot’ program which will immerse me in sessions focusing on Youth Writers/ Readers. I am most interested in the:

- Opening session, showcasing all the writers for the festival who are going to be introduced by none other than Sue Gillett and Sarah Major Cox who are both key representatives of La Trobe University’s Writers in Action (WIA) subject

- Keeping up appearances: Story, social media and the story of social media session with Gabrielle Tozer and Jaclyn Moriarty

- Misfits & Red Queens: My Life. My Stories session with Isobelle Carmody

- Story blasting session

I’m really keen for these sessions because they all have a common theme to do with storytelling and how to represent stories in an engaging and insightful way. The two of my favourite sessions I feel I will probably enjoy out of this list would be the social media and story blasting sessions. I feel as though they would challenge my thinking to implement ideas for my own writing and would encourage me to get my name out there. This comes from my aspiration to become a journalist.

I am so excited for tomorrow, I’m thinking I may not get that much sleep tonight. Go hard or go home as they say. By the end of the festival though, I’m hoping I will have gained a better knowledge of writing techniques, the authors behind words from their books, and the festival in general. The way I see it is as long as I have received an insight into each and every author’s personalities and have gained vital advice about writing then I’ll be a very happy WIA student. Overall, I’m sure this weekend will be fun, enjoyable and I will learn many things.